The Artist Minute – Marcus Amaker, Poet Laureate of Charleston
February 6, 2020
The Who’s on the Move, BizSC, Artist Minute is a quick, two-minute interview in support of the undeniable impact that the arts and local artists have on our communities. One of the main drivers of a strong local economy as well as attracting talent to a region is the critical role the arts has in our community. Please enjoy watching, listening and supporting our artists in this series. We welcome you to share these videos with your business contacts and friends through social media.
We would like to thank our sponsor of this video series:
Marcus Amaker, Poet Laureate of Charleston
Marcus Amaker is Charleston, South Carolina’s first poet laureate, an award-winning graphic designer, musician, videographer and web designer.
In 2019, he was named the Gaillard Center’s artist-in-residence. Also in 2019, he received the prestigious Fresh Voices in the Humanities award.
He’s published seven poetry books and has been mentioned in The New York Times as well as been featured on TEDxCharleston, PBS Newshour, the A&E network, the Huffington Post, Alaska Beyond Magazine, SC Public Radio, North Dakota Quarterly, Fare Magazine and many local media outlets.
As a musician, he’s created more than 30 electronic music albums. His 2018 project, empath, is a collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer Quentin E. Baxter of Ranky Tanky.
As poet laureate, Marcus visits many schools to conduct poetry workshops and to inspire students to write. Area schools have started poetry clubs after his visits. He also created Charleston’s first poetry festival, Free Verse.
As a journalist, Marcus helped to create Charleston Scene, a weekly entertainment section for Charleston’s SC’s daily newspaper, the Post and Courier. He is currently the lead graphic designer for the national music journal, No Depression.
In our interview, he starts off with a beautiful poem about fatherhood.
