A South Carolina Requiem
Ebook
Overview
A South Carolina Requiem, the final book in Tony Scully’s trilogy, evokes his earlier books, A Carolina Psalter and Come into the Light, with poems addressing foundation texts with questions and occasional confrontation as we move into new understandings of Spirit. As South Carolina strives forward in cultural achievements in science, education, and the arts, A South Carolina Requiem celebrates the warmth of its people and their continuing determination to fight for justice and civil rights. A South Carolina Requiem acknowledges the struggles over the centuries of dirt farmers and mill workers, the removal of the Cherokee in the Trail of Tears, and the injustices of slavery and Jim Crow as the threshold of rebirth and transformation. Scully’s poems interact with South Carolina traditions and rituals: Baptist hymns; Presbyterian hymns; Anglican hymns; the Kaddish; the Cherokee prayer at death; significant sermons in the history of the Carolinas; and the Requiem Mass, itself a compendium of ancient and revered texts. The poems also interact with the sometimes controversial public events and personalities that have challenged and ultimately transformed the people of the state.
“From a single site—South Carolina—and with complex insight,
Scully’s meditations forge a bond among people: those back then,
those now, and those in between; those of various colors,
ethnicities, politics, and classes; those religious and
nonreligious in today’s cultural crossroads when ‘difference’ among
people is the way to go that, in the end, separates us, one from
another. Scully opts for ‘communion’ that, in the end, brings us
together. Boy, do we need him now!”
—Drew Casper, University of Southern California, emeritus
“These beautiful meditations raise up the people of our past. Their
stories are at the heart of America. Tony Scully’s engaging,
graceful writing interprets diverse voices of South Carolina as
nowhere else on earth. In the third of his Carolina trilogy, Scully
excites our imagination with compassion and new understanding of
fresh possibilities for human cooperation and love.”
—Martha Daniels, South Carolina author and historian
“‘A love letter to South Carolina,’ Tony Scully calls A South
Carolina Requiem. Love is complicated. So, too, the boundaries
the poet pushes and urges to come together. Bringing to life events
in and beyond his adopted state, with sources from the Requiem Mass
to Wikipedia, Scully bridges past, present, and future to compel
examination of struggle in the embracing light of humanity, time,
and spirituality. This ‘letter’ entices opening and
responding.”
—Joan A. Inabinet and L. Glen Inabinet, authors of A History of
Kershaw County, South Carolina
“This brilliant compilation of poetry tells stories—evocative
stories of a people and a place, at once haunting and inspiring,
filled with blood and iron and courage and grace, above all
unforgettable. Tony Scully is an astonishing wordsmith whose truths
cut to the bone.”
—Richard Brown, director, University of South Carolina
Press
- Title: A South Carolina Requiem
- Author: Tony Scully
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666795578, 9781666795561, 9781666736779, 1666795577, 1666795569, 1666736775
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666795578
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-12-22T06:45:32Z
Tony Scully has been a Broadway playwright, a Jesuit, and mayor
of a Southern city. After Boston College and the Yale School of
Drama, he pursued liturgical reform at the Woodstock Center for
Religion and Worship in Manhattan. In Hollywood, he was a
writer/consultant. He has taught painting and worked in street
theater. He is the author of A Carolina Psalter (Resource,
2019) and Come into the Light (Resource, 2020).