Kwame Senu Neville Dawes's Books

Bivouac

By: Kwame Dawes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

165

Publisher

Akashic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1617757209

ISBN 13

9781617757204

Duppy Conqueror

New and Selected Poems

By: Kwame Senu Neville Dawes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Duppy Conqueror

New and Selected Poems

By: Kwame Senu Neville Dawes

Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, finalist. "Dawes's verse has an expressive power and lyric resonance that can be attributed to a trans-Atlantic consciousness weaned on the spiritual sources of reggae."--New York Times Book Review "Raised in Jamaica, Dawes takes some of his cues, and this book's title, from reggae music. But his voice in these long and short poems and sequences selected from each of his many books, which began appearing in the mid-1990s, is crystal clear, accessible and serious, mixing a timeless myth-making energy with a strong contemporary conscience..." --National Public Radio "This first U.S. selection from the Jamaica-bred, Nebraska-based poet (he also has a reputation in Britain) is his 16th book of verse in just 20 years; it reveals a writer syncretic, effusive, affectionate, alert to familial joys, but also sensitive to history, above all to the struggles of African diasporic history--the Middle Passage, sharecropper-era South Carolina, the Kingston of Bob Marley, whose song gives this big book its title. Dawes is at home with cityscape and seascape, patois and transatlantic tradition." --Publishers Weekly " 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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

338

Publisher

Copper Canyon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1556594232

ISBN 13

9781556594236

New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Sita)

By: Kwame Dawes,Chris Abani

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Sita)

By: Kwame Dawes,Chris Abani

This eleven-piece, limited-edition box set--an African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) project--features the work of ten new African poets.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

350

Published Date

ISBN 10

1617757179

ISBN 13

9781617757174

A Far Cry from Plymouth Rock

A Personal Narrative

By: Kwame Senu Neville Dawes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Far Cry from Plymouth Rock

A Personal Narrative

By: Kwame Senu Neville Dawes

After ten years of living and working in South Carolina, of trying to manage a writing career that spans the USA, the UK and Jamaica, the question of where was home had become insistent. In this deeply personal narrative, Dawes explores the experiences that bring him to indecision.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

236

Publisher

Peepal Tree Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1845230256

ISBN 13

9781845230258

City of Bones

A Testament

By: Kwame Dawes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

City of Bones

A Testament

By: Kwame Dawes

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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

287

Publisher

Northwestern University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0810134632

ISBN 13

9780810134638

Midland

Poems

By: Kwame Dawes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Midland

Poems

By: Kwame Dawes

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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

105

Publisher

Ohio University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0821440926

ISBN 13

9780821440926

Gomer's Song

By: Kwame Dawes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Gomer's Song

By: Kwame Dawes

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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

100

Publisher

Akashic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1933354445

ISBN 13

9781933354446

Duppy Conqueror

New and Selected Poems

By: Kwame Senu Neville Dawes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Duppy Conqueror

New and Selected Poems

By: Kwame Senu Neville Dawes

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

338

Publisher

Copper Canyon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1556594232

ISBN 13

9781556594236

Book's by Kwame Senu Neville Dawes

Bivouac

Bivouac

Duppy Conqueror

Duppy Conqueror

New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Sita)

New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Sita)

A Far Cry from Plymouth Rock

A Far Cry from Plymouth Rock

City of Bones

City of Bones

Midland

Midland

Gomer's Song

Gomer's Song

Duppy Conqueror

Duppy Conqueror

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email