Poetry Box Set

Glenis Redmond is Greenville, South Carolina’s Inaugural Poet Laureate and a 2025 recipient of the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor, awarded by the Governor and approved by a bipartisan committee in recognition of a lifetime of extraordinary achievement, service, and contributions on a national or statewide scale. She has dedicated over 30 years to a career as a poet, teaching artist, and literary citizen.

Most recently, Glenis received the Highlights Foundation Inspire Scholarship in 2025 and is serving as a Baldwin Fellow (2024–2025). In 2023, she was selected as a Poet Laureate Fellow by the Academy of American Poets. She was also named a Citizen Diplomat by the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center.

In 2022, Glenis received the Governor’s Award for the Arts and was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, the state’s literary hall of fame. She is a Cave Canem alumna and a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves. Glenis earned her B.A. from Erskine College and her M.F.A. in poetry from Warren Wilson College.

Her poetry has appeared in Orion Magazine, Callaloo, American Poets, The New York Times, and the North Carolina Literary Review. The Listening Skin was shortlisted for both the PEN Open Book Award and the Julie Suk Award.

Glenis is the proud mother of twin daughters, Amber and Celeste, and a devoted grandmother (“Gaga”) to Julian, Paisley, and Quinn.

She believes that poetry is the mouth that speaks when all other mouths are silent.