Kwame S. N. Dawes
Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collection of poetry, Sturge Town, was published in 2024. The author of numerous books, his poetry collections include Wisteria: Poems From the Swamp Country (2006), Impossible Flying (2006), Back of Mount Peace (2009), Hope’s Hospice (2009), Wheels (2011), Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems (2013), and City of Bones: A Testament (2017). Dawes’s novels include She’s Gone (2007), and Bivouac (2010), and his non-fiction collections include A Far Cry From Plymouth Rock: A Personal Narrative (2007) and Fugue and Other Writings (2012). His work has been included in anthologies, including So Much Things to Say (2010) and many others.
Dawes is Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University and he also teaches in the Pacific MFA Program. He was previously the George Holmes Professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner.
Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica, where he co-founded and is program director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He also is the Director of the African Poetry Book Fund, a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Dawes is the winner of the Windham/Campbell Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2004 Dawes was awarded the Musgrave Silver Medal, and in 2022 Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica.