One River, One Boat

After being cut from Governor Nikki Haley’s inauguration in 2015, former South Carolina poet laureate Marjory Wentworth’s poem “One River, One Boat” serves as the titular piece for a new collection of writings. This collection of occasional poems and essays includes those written about heartbreaking and joyous times in South Carolina’s history and Wentworth’s own life including the deaths of relatives, gubernatorial inaugurations, the Mother Emmanuel AME massacre, Hurricane Hugo, and more. Congressman James Clyburn read Wentworth’s poem “One River, One Boat” into the Congressional record in 2015 after it was slashed from Haley’s inauguration, saying he “hope[s] the people of South Carolina, across the country, and peoples around the world are as touched by her words as I have been.”