where despair runs deep & hope's embrace will keep my head above water

where despair runs deep & hope's embrace will keep my head above water is a curated anthology of contemporary voices from South Carolina-featuring both student and adult poets. Spanning Goose Creek, Summerville, North Charleston, downtown Charleston, and including a poet from the Columbia area, these poems hold space for grief, beauty, resistance, and renewal.The collection is divided into two parts: // we're learning to surface features poems by student writers navigating identity, emotion, and the glimmers of voice.// we carry what the water gave us gathers work from adult poets reflecting, reckoning, and remembering.Together, these sections lift up emerging youth alongside established local writers, offering an honest, genre-defiant look at what it means to be human here and now. With themes ranging from mental health to justice, memory to transformation, this book is a testament to the creative pulse of the Lowcountry-and to the way poetry gives language to what we're carrying.Featuring: Adyson HallowsAddison EdwardsAbigail SullivanAniyah MartinAziia BaileyBri MillerCarrie Parker AckermanCharlee ReedCheyenne HurstConner PossDaJenqiue McBee aka @Speak_nekFaith WalkerHeather RoseHero HowardKaitlyn JohnsonKeira GranthamLayle Keane ChambersLe'Mar SmallsLinda Joy WaldermalarilesleyNatasha AkerySofie WilliamsWilliam Lawrence JohnsonCompiled by Marcus Amaker, Charleston, SC's first Poet Laureate and a South Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee.