Kwame Dawes
What do you get when you combine a well-known poet with a campus dance company? You get Verse and Twirl: An Evening with Kwarme Dawes and MWSU Dancers, a new event that will be in the Potter Hall Theater on campus at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 6. It is free and open to the public.
Poet, editor, and Emmy winner Kwame Dawes will give a public reading of his work and Missouri Western dance students, led by Marla Heeler, will perform several choreographed adaptations of Dawes’ poems before and after his reading. Dawes will sign copies of his books during a reception following the event.
Dawes has authored 35 books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and essays, including, most recently, “Bivouac”(Akashic Books, 2019) and “City of Bones: A Testament” (Northwestern, 2017). “Speak from Here to There”(Peepal Tree Press), co-written with Australian poet John Kinsella, appeared in 2016. He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. He is also a faculty member in the Pacific MFA Program. He is director of the African Poetry Book Fund and artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. Dawes is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Copies of the Spring 2019 issue of The Mochila Review, Missouri Western’s national undergraduate literary journal, will also be available at the event. The issue features an interview with Dawes, who served as guest judge for Mochila’s annual contest for undergraduate writers. From more than 100 applicants, Dawes selected as the contest winner Jennifer Woolard’s poem “Whalebone,” which will appear in The Mochila Review’s Spring 2019 issue.
Dawes’ appearance is made possible through a grant from the MWSU Arts Society, as well as support from Missouri Western’s English and Modern Languages department, the St. Joseph Public Library, and Rolling Hills Public Library.
To learn more about Dawes, visit kwamedawes.com. For more information about The Mochila Review, visit www.mochilareview.com.