Kwame Dawes is the author of twenty-one books of poetry, including City of Bones: A Testament (Northwestern University Press, 2017). In 2018, a new edition of his 1995 epic, Prophets, was released by Peepal Tree Press. In 2017, Dawes co-edited, with Matthew Shenoda, Bearden’s Odyssey: Poets Respond to the Art of Romare Bearden (Northwest University Press, 2017). Dawes is also the author of numerous works of fiction, literary criticism, and essays. He is the recipient of multiple honors and awards, including the Forward Poetry Prize, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, the Musgrave Silver Medal, several Pushcart Prizes, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, and an Emmy. He is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and a chancellor’s professor of English at the University of Nebraska. The co-founder and artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Dawes also teaches in Pacific University’s MFA writing program.  

Photo by Chris Abani