The Listening Skin and Pen Open Book Award
The Listening Skin, a book by Glenis Redmond is longlisted for the Pen Open Book Award.
Praise for The Listening Skin:
“In The Listening Skin, Glenis Redmond returns to the ancestors and the deep knowing that comes from being ever ready to receive the wisdom they give us.She plants us again in the South Carolinian soil and reaches across decades and continents back to the motherland for historical context, for truth, and for healing. She does not flinch from racism nor the complexities of what it means to carry trauma inside the Black body.These poems are beautifully rendered but don’t shrink. I am grateful for the depth and breadth of the music and the keen use of the line in this collection but mostly I’m taken by to the way Glenis holds us up to the light. In her sure hands we shine!” – Crystal Wilkinson
“Its first language was scratched from the land. A powerful, generous, and wise collection. The Listening Skin is an archeological tool that excavated my history, my longing, and my joy.Now I know I can read the sky.These poems will forever walk with me into the next life and the next and the next… Lifegiving, Joyous, Essential!” – Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Poet Teaching Artist
