DON’T MISS THIS:

POET KWAME DAWES READS IN CHICAGO ON JAN. 10

A few years back, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the wonderful poet Kwame Dawes when I was invited to read at the Calabash Festival in Jamaica. Kwame is co-founder of Calabash along with the author Colin Channer. Ghanaian by birth and reared in Jamaica, Dawes, who is a professor at the University of South Carolina, is one of my favorite poets. A marvel. And to hear him read aloud from his own work – sheer bliss!

He’s coming to Chicago on Thursday and is not to be missed.

Here’s the lowdown:

AT 6:00 p.m. Thursday, January 10 at the Art Institute of Chicago, poet Kwame Dawes reads from three of his most recent books. Gomer’s Song is the story of Gomer, the adulterous wife of the minor Old Testament prophet Hosea, daringly recast in a contemporary setting. These poems, offered through the voice of Gomer, explore sexuality, social stigma, transgression, faith, and the complications of gender. Impossible Flying examines themes of mental illness, familial complications, identity, and place, and has been described as perhaps Dawes’s most daring and personal collection to date. A finalist for the 2007 Patterson Prize, Wisteria: Twilight Songs from the Swamp Country, contains poems written in the voices of elderly African American women from South Carolina, whom Dawes interviewed in 1995. These works expose the world of Jim Crow and show the power and resilience of those who have found the capacity to survive and thrive. Dawes, a poet of precision, passion, and lyricism, is known as a dynamic and engaging reader.

Click HERE for more details
or HERE to read more about Kwame and his work
and click HERE to read God Girl’s column about Kwame