The poets include: Paul Allen, Jan Bailey, Cathy Smith Bowers, Jessica Bundschuh, Stephen Corey, Robert Cumming, Debra Daniel, Carol Ann Davis, Curtis Derrick, Linda Ferguson, Starkey Flythe, Angela Kelly, John Lane, Susan Ludvigson, Terri McCord, John Ower, Ron Rash, Paul Rice, Warren Slesinger, and Kathleen Whitten. Each has won a Poetry Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission during the period 1977-2004. The book's introduction is written by editor Kwame Dawes, poet-in-residence at the University of South Carolina and director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative, a statewide organization that promotes and celebrates the reading, writing, and performing of poetry across South Carolina.