Customer Reviews

Midland: Poems

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Simply - one of the best poetry books I have ever read. Wonderful, deep, brilliant craftsmanship - stunning imagery. A great new poetic voice.

This book won the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize in 2000. Dawes was born in Ghanda but grew up and was educated in Jamaica and New Brunswick, Canada. This collection speaks to the landscape and the authors experience in South Carolina where he teaches English at the University of South Carolina. It also deals with the poet as an artist and has been hailed as "a powerful testament of the complexity, pain, and enrichment of inheritance." My favorite poem is "Love Oil" which deals with the meaning of home for the poet. This is first class poetry.

In Midland, Kwame Dawes describes journeys (geographical, spiritual and aesthetic) which ultimately leave us in state of grace contained in the title poem.
Dawes moves us easily between London, Jamaica, Africa and South Carolina as only someone of his intelligence, humour and talent could and creates a poetic tapestry as a true inheritor of the burden/glory of the African diaspora. Yet despite the shame of racism/slavery/alienation, Dawes keeps on moving with the music, "the reggae aesthetic" that buoys up even his most gut wrenching poems.
If you doubt me, read "Sun Strokes" and then tell me if this man is not a poet!