As if convinced that all divination of the future is somehow a re-visioning of the past, Kwame Dawes reminds us of the clairvoyance of haunting. The lyric poems in City of Bones: A Testament constitute a restless jeremiad for our times, and Dawes’s inimitable voice peoples this collection with multitudes of souls urgently and forcefully singing, shouting, groaning, and dreaming about the African diasporic present and future. As the twentieth collection in the poet’s hallmarked career, City of Bones reaches a pinnacle, adding another chapter to the grand narrative of invention and discovery cradled in the art of empathy that has defined his prodigious body of work. Dawes’s formal mastery is matched only by the precision of his insights into what is at stake in our lives today. These poems are shot through with music from the drum to reggae to the blues to jazz to gospel, proving that Dawes is the ambassador of words and worlds.
[Dawes] is highly original and intelligent, possessing poetic sensibility that is rooted and sound, unshakeable and unstopped, both in its vibrancy and direction. He writes poetry as it ought to be written."—World Literature Today "Dawes asserts himself as man and artist and finally, with grace achieved and grace said, sits down to begin life's tragic feast . . . a writer of major significance."—Brag Book "The notion of a reggae aesthetic—of the language moving to a different rhythm, under different kinds of pressure . . . underpins all Dawes' work as poet."—Stewart Brown Born in Ghana, raised in Jamaica, and educated in Canada, Kwame Dawes is a dynamic and electrifying poet. In this generous collection, new poems appear with the best work from fifteen previous volumes. Deeply nuanced in exploring the human condition, Dawes' poems are filled with complex emotion and consistently remind us what it means to be a global citizen. From "The Lessons": Fingers can be trained to make shapes that, pressed just right on the gleaming keys, will make a sound that can stay tears or cause them to flow for days. Anyone can learn to make some music, but not all have the heart to beat out the tunes that will turn us inside out. . . Kwame Dawes is the author of fifteen collections of poetry, two novels, four anthologies, and numerous essays and plays. In 2009 he won an Emmy Award for his interactive website, LiveHopeLove.com. Since 2011 he has taught at the University of Nebraska, and lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Kwame Dawes is not a native Nebraskan. Born in Ghana, he later moved to Jamaica, where he spent most of his childhood and early adulthood. In 1992 he relocated to the United States and eventually found himself an American living in Lincoln, Nebraska. In Nebraska, this beautiful and evocative collection of poems, Dawes explores a theme constant in his work—the intersection of memory, home, and artistic invention. The poems, set against the backdrop of Nebraska’s discrete cycle of seasons, are meditative even as they search for a sense of place in a new landscape. While he shovels snow or walks in the bitter cold to his car, he is engulfed with memories of Kingston, yet when he travels, he finds himself longing for the open space of the plains and the first snowfall. With a strong sense of place and haunting memories, Dawes grapples with life in Nebraska as a transplant. Purchase the audio edition.
The winning manuscript of the fourth annual Hollis Summers Poetry Prize is also the exciting American debut by a poet who has already established himself as an important international poetic voice. Midland, the seventh collection by Kwame Dawes, draws deeply on the poet’s travels and experiences in Africa, the Caribbean, England, and the American South. Marked equally by a lushness of imagery, an urgency of tone, and a muscular rhythm, Midland, in the words of the final judge, Eavan Boland, is “a powerful testament of the complexity, pain, and enrichment of inheritance...It is a compelling meditation on what is given and taken away in the acts of generation and influence. Of a father’s example and his oppression. There are different places throughout the book. They come willfully in and out of the poems: Jamaica. London. Africa. America. But all the places become one place in the central theme and undersong here: which is displacement...The achievement of this book is a beautifully crafted voice which follows the painful and vivid theme of homelessness in and out of the mysteries of loss and belonging.” Midland is the work of a keen and transcendent intellect, a collection of poems that speaks to the landscape from inside, from an emotional and experiential place of risk and commitment.
The death of a Jamaican man’s father raises questions about the father’s political endeavors, and about the plight of 1980s Jamaica. “Few other novels encapsulate Jamaica’s political upheavals so well. Protagonist Ferron Morgan agonizes over his father’s death, maybe from a doctor’s mistake, maybe from a radical rival’s hands. Meanwhile, he’s running from everything, including his own emotions about his fiancée—with sad results. Bivouac is not an easy or light book, but the immediacy Dawes creates is worth it.” —Literary Hub, included in 5 Books You May Have Missed in April “An examination of grief and politics in a deftly written novel set in 1980s Jamaica . . . Astonishing prose.” —Kirkus Reviews When Ferron Morgan’s father dies in suspicious circumstances, his trauma is exacerbated by the conflict within his family and among his father’s friends over whether the death was the result of medical negligence or if it was a political assassination. Ferron grew up in awe of his father’s radical political endeavors, but in later years he watched as the resurgence of the political right in the Caribbean in the 1980s robbed the man of his faith. Ferron’s response to the death is further complicated by guilt, particularly over his failure to protect his fiancée from a brutal assault. He begins to investigate the direction of his life with great intensity, in particular his instinct to keep moving on and running from trouble. This is a sharply focused portrayal of Jamaica at a tipping point in its recent past, in which the private grief and trauma condenses a whole society’s scarcely understood sense of temporariness and dislocation.
An itinerant preacher whose story reads like Job—except for an incandescent smile and a mountain-moving faith. A woman who remains resolutely joyful despite the HIV that has infected half her family, young girls subjected to rape and forced into commercial sex, a couple whose triumph over the disease that challenges them both is a study in grace. Haiti has always been a place of extremes, especially in the rubble of the earthquake that shattered the country in early 2010 and all the more so among those of its people who are also struggling with HIV/AIDS. “Voices of Haiti” tells their stories in a mesmerizing presentation that combines the poetry of Kwame Dawes, the writing of Lisa Armstrong, the photography of Andre Lambertson, and the music of Kevin Simmonds. This iBook is the capstone of a multi-year project by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The work has been featured in The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, USA Today and other media outlets—and in live performances at the National Black Theatre Festival and in Port au Prince, Miami, and Washington, DC. “Voices of Haiti” brings all of that together, with indelible portraits of remarkable individuals.
This collection reasserts the significant work of the writer and intellectual Neville Dawes, whose poetry has been unavailable since the late 1950s. A lifelong Marxist and a lover of English literature, Dawes’s concern for the rural Jamaican working class is evident in the poems that celebrate his youth in the village of Sturge Town, Jamaica. Written between 1950 and 1970, these inspiring poems show that the strength provided by heritage can overcome the difficulties posed by the social and political hardships of modern life. An introduction and several poems written by Dawes's son, Kwame Davis, are also included.
The quintessential folk poet of the Third World, Bob Marley influenced generations of musicians and writers. He was a performer who held true to his religious and cultural heritage, who rallied against injustice, and who became an internationally revered musical icon. Renowned poet and scholar Kwame Dawes analyses in detail his verses and lyrics, matching them against the social and political climate of the time and asking of them what it meant to be a black, Jamaican man thrust into the limelight of western society; how change can be affected through music; and how political and ethical truths can be woven into song. His lyrics are poignant, powerful and poetic and this book showcases his written word. Updated to include an interactive timeline of his life, formed with videos and imagery, as well as integrated Spotify playlists, this is the perfect companion to Bob Marley’s recordings.
Gomer, an Old Testament harlot, was the non-conformist wife of the prophet Hosea. In Dawes' contemporary reinterpretation of this Bible story, he presents a beautiful and sometimes erotic exploration of the cost of arriving at freedom with an uneasy grace. Dawes examines the insidious qualities of power, the confining nature of gender roles and the limits of protest. Through Gomer's journey, readers are asked to consider how each one of us is able to express our own defiance, as well as to tally the costs of our individuality.
Exploring the relationships between the Caribbean people and their environment, this anthology brings together poetry, fiction, and other pieces of prose that focus on the Caribbean’s natural and manmade environments with an insider point of view. The writings are divided by relating to various places, including constructed, intimate, and natural ones, in addition to the flora and fauna of the region, which has, in some cases, taken on iconic significance. This collection gives a true insight into both the Caribbean landscape and its corresponding mindscape. This anthology brings together poetry, fiction and other prose that explores the relationship between Caribbean people and their environment, both man-made and natural. The anthology deals with constructed places such as the plantation, the village and the city, intimate places such as houses and yards, and natural ones such as the sea and wilderness. The last section focuses on the idea of journeying as a matter of personal transformation.
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