In advance of the Calabash Literary Festival, let's cheerfully and proudly congratulate Kwame for a rare award...Big Ups...Pro-fessor!

Jamaican Professor Kwame Dawes has been awarded the 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry. One of the most prestigious fellowships in the world, it was established in 1925 and intended for men and women who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship and exceptional creativity in the arts. The foundation receives between 3,500 and 4,000 applications per year and awards approximately 200.

Gleaner LINK:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120422/arts/arts5.html

Kwame Reading: from his poem: Tornado Child
www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/uwm/dawes.html

Like Marley, "Dawes understands that redemption is essential," according to the journal Chicken Bones, "and he finds it in the pure music of his art."--Poetry Foundation

"I think poems are always collage on some level…Collage is a way to force awareness out of the random flow of information that's constantly bombarding us."...Lisa Jarnot