Areas I Teach
Kwame Dawes is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent poetry collection, Sturge Town, was published by W.W. Norton in June 2024 and was longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. His collection Nebraska appeared in 2019 and City of Bones: A Testament appeared in 2017. Also in 2017, Dawes co-edited with Matthew Shenoda Bearden’s Odyssey: Poets Responding to the Art of Romare Bearden. In 2016 his book Speak from Here to There, a co-written collection of verse with Australian poet John Kinsella, appeared along with When the Rewards Can Be So Great: Essays on Writing and the Writing Life, which he edited. His awards include the Forward Poetry Prize, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, the Musgrave Silver Medal, several Pushcart Prizes, the Barnes and Nobles Writers for Writers Award, and an Emmy. He is currently a Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. Dawes serves as the Associate Poetry Editor for Peepal Tree Books and is Director of the African Poetry Book Fund. He is the Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He is a Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was also the editor of American Life in Poetry. Dawes in the winner of the Windham-Campbell Award for poetry. Dawes was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2022, Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica. He was recently named Poet Laureate of Jamaica.
Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffith