KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Sept. 29, 2023 \u2013 Ghanaian poet, actor, editor, critic, musician and Emmy Award-winner Kwame Dawes will read a selection of poems from his 20 poetry collections on Thursday, Oct. 5, as part of the äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾ College of Arts and Sciences\u2019 75th anniversary celebration. The event also forms part of the Center for the Humanities\u2019 lecture series, \u201cInnovations in Storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dawes\u2019 presentation<\/a> is scheduled for 4 p.m. in the Higgins Welcome Center\u2019s Hope Room. Dawes will sign books after his half-hour reading. The event is free and open to all. Registration<\/a> is required. The lecture will also be livestreamed. Please, go to the lecture page to view the livestream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKwame Dawes\u2019 recognitions \u2013 from the Pushcart Prize to a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship to an Emmy Award \u2013 speak to the breadth and impact of his work,\u201d said Jeannette Riley, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. \u201cHe is recognized not just for his poetry, but also for his other writings that include an influential book on Bob Marley\u2019s lyrics to plays to non-fiction collections to news reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m very pleased to host him as part of the college\u2019s anniversary celebration. Engaging our students and the community in the humanities is central to our mission and Dawes\u2019 writings illustrate the power of language \u2013 the poem itself \u2013 to move us to question and contemplate the world and our place in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dawes, the Chancellor\u2019s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, is the author of more than 35 books of poetry, fiction, criticism and essays. His latest collection, \u201cCity of Bones: A Testament,\u201d brings together lyrical, narrative and elegiac poems that consider the existence of a historical African soul that inhabits present day African-American and Caribbean sensibility. He is also the editor-in-chief of \u201cPrairie Schooner\u201d at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and co-founder of the Calabash International Literary Festival, which was launched in May and will be held biannually in Jamaica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He is the recipient of numerous honors, including a Pushcart Prize for Poetry in 2001 and the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection in 1994, and was named Literary Person of the Year in 2022 by Brittle Paper, recognizing his contributions to the advancement of the African literary industry and culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and an Emmy Award in New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle & Culture for his project documenting HIV\/AIDS in Jamaica that combined poetry, photography and music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The event is part of the College of Arts and Sciences\u2019 75th anniversary celebration, which follows Dawes\u2019 reading on the Quad at 5 p.m. Dawes\u2019 presentation was organized and sponsored by the college, along with the English and Africana Studies departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n