Poetry buffs aside, it's safe to say that even the most explosive SC-based poets — like Ray McManus or Nikky Finney — don't have the audience they deserve.
For one reason or another, the nerve-jolt that comes with reading a well constructed poem isn't the kind of experience that people really connect with anymore, even among South Carolina college students.
Which is why we're glad to see that Columbia is taking the small, important step of creating a position for a city poet laureate.
And if anyone deserves to be the first poet laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, Ed Madden does.
As the Director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at USC and an associate professor of English, Madden represents the best that USC has to offer in terms of both artistic merit and social activism.
In 2007, he won the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize for "Signals," his poem compilation and has been very active in pushing for LGBT rights. (He, along with his partner Bert Easter, have the distinction of being the first gay couple to be officially married in Richland county.)
The appointment of a city laureate isn't just the deserved recognition of a civic leader and gifted artist: it's also a recognition of the form itself.
Poetry, unlike certain recognizable public art pieces in Columbia (including "Tunnelvision" or the 5-ton fire hydrant on Taylor Street) isn't easy to cement to a specific place. Creating a poet laureate position is one of the best, and easiest, methods to create permanent ties between a city and its art. Cities like Fresno, Boise, and Key West have created laureate positions of their own.
Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, recognizing a gay poet in this way helps contribute to the narrative that Columbia is a city which prides both difference and perspective.
Finally, the duty of the laureate to help publicize the art of poetry is a self-fulfilling one. In his duties to help bring poetry to younger generations, as both a professor and a laureate, Madden is in a position to inspire other talents to become future poet laureates in turn.
The effect of all this will, with luck, be a long string of Columbia-based poets, each influenced by each other, giving the city the kind of cultural through-line it has lacked before this.
Like other cities, Columbia has always turned to its artists to give voice to the times it moves through.
In lending its voice to Madden, it has put itself in very good hands.