Join acclaimed Jamaican poet, novelist and playwright Kwame Dawes for an intimate poetry masterclass. A meditation on the value and complexity of obsession for the artist, we will explore how engaging our obsessions can teach us a great deal about our art and can feed the power and urgency of what we write about. The hope is to find the sweet spot between “the trying” and “the rest is not our business.”

Kwame is the author of 24 collections of poetry including Nebraska, Bivouac and Wisteria. His forthcoming collection Sturge Town connects the earliest days of his work as a poet, from the roots of his childhood in Ghana to the reflections of a sixty year old man who is witnessing his children occupying the space he once considered his own. 

Kwame is the Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

The masterclass will include some practical exercises for writing poetry.