Pop Smart - Poet Shannon Leigh dies

Local poet and member of the Atlanta Art Amok! Slam Team, Shannon Leigh, died yesterday, having been in critical condition for more than two weeks following a cave-diving accident June 14. She was 20 years old.

She had gotten trapped in an underwater cavern at Ginnie Springs in High Springs, Fla., when her breathing apparatus came out. It’s unknown how long she was underwater before Mike Woods, a diving instructor, found her.

From the Gainesville Sun:

“I saw a dive buoy but I couldn’t see any scuba diver’s bubbles coming up so I swam over there to the entrance to Devil’s Eye,” an underwater cavern, Woods said. He said his plan was to descend to the cavern’s entrance, but when he got about 10 feet below the surface, he saw a woman’s face looking up at him.

“I realized that she was in dire emergency status — she was pressed up against two submerged logs and I understood my limit,” Woods said.

Unable to rescue her alone, Woods enlisted the help of two other divers and called 911.

At 19, Shannon got third place at the National Poetry Slam indies competition. She was the only woman to place in the top 10. Kodac Harrison, local poet and emcee of the Java Monkey Speaks weekly open mic, said, in an email, “She was so young, so beautiful and so very talented … We are so fortunate to have witnessed such a great talent in our area.”

Here’s Shannon performing her poem “Sudanese Children” on HBO’s “Def Poetry” in 2007.

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Her death is a tremendous blow, not only to the Atlanta poetry community, but to everyone who ever heard her read. I did not know her personally, but as a poet, an Atlantan and a young woman, I feel her loss very strongly. She will be greatly missed.

Shannon’s Wishes is a LiveJournal community for friends and fans of Shannon Leigh. People are encouraged to write poems in her memory. For more of Shannon Leigh’s credentials and poetry, visit her MySpace Music page. To donate to her hospital bill fund, go to getwellshannon.com.