Background
Sinclair was born on April 15, 1939, in Greenville, South Carolina. She was born to William Graham Sinclair, Senior, and the former Bennie Lee Ward. Her parents separated when she was five years old and she stayed with her mother.
Sinclair was born on April 15, 1939, in Greenville, South Carolina. She was born to William Graham Sinclair, Senior, and the former Bennie Lee Ward. Her parents separated when she was five years old and she stayed with her mother.
She graduated from Greenville High School in 1956 and then went on graduate from Furman University as Phi Beta Kappa in 1961.
She was named by Governor Richard Wilson Riley as the fifth South Carolina Poet Laureate from 1986 to 2000. Early life and education Sinclair"s talents exhibited early as one of her poems was published in a national teacher"s journal, submitted by her first-grade teacher. Later, she returned to her alma mater and becoming a creative writing instructor at Furman University for many years.
Her first poem as an adult was published in the journal Foxfire in 1968.
Poet laureateship Sinclair was named to be South Carolina"s fifth poet laureate by Governor Dick Riley in 1986. At the time, she was the youngest poet laureate the state had appointed, at age 47.
The poet laureate often reads and/or writes a poem for the South Carolina Governor"s inauguration. In 1999, at the inauguration of Governor Jim Hodges, high winds blew her papers away, but she proceeded to recite the poem from memory.
Personal life Sinclair married sculptor Don Lewis in 1958.
Lewis was a former Marine whom she met while they were both freshmen at Furman. Her brother Walt (Waldo Graham Sinclair, Junior, nicknamed "Buster") was a 1967 graduate of The Citadel and was the inspiration for her poetry collection The Arrowhead Scholar. They lived most of their life on a 135-acre wildlife and plant sanctuary in the Cleveland community of Greenville County, South Carolina, which they moved into in 1976.
Sinclair had suffered from diabetes and suffered many ailments over the last several years of her life.
In 1993, she underwent a kidney transplant. She died of an apparent heart attack on May 22, 2000, in Greenville, South Carolina.