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Date February 6, 2025
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Brown University Professor of Literary Arts Kwame Dawes named poet laureate of Jamaica

Dawes, who has written dozens of books of poetry, fiction, essays and criticism, looks to celebrate Jamaican writing, oral tradition, folk songs, reggae music and more in his new role as the Caribbean nation’s poet laureate.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Kwame Dawes, a Brown University professor of literary arts, has been named poet laureate of Jamaica. 

As poet laureate, Dawes is “charged with stimulating a greater appreciation for Jamaican poetry, while trying to develop mass appeal for poetry as an art and medium for developing and disseminating our cultural heritage,” according to a description published by the National Library of Jamaica. 

During a three-year term, Dawes will present poetry readings and seminars, promote reading and Jamaican literature, write poetry for national events and create a publication related to Jamaican poetry. 

“I feel very honored by this appointment,” said Dawes, who was born in Ghana and moved to Jamaica at age nine before settling in the United States as an adult. “For the country that gave me a lot in terms of my development as an artist, as a thinker, as a writer and as a human being — to recognize the work I’m doing and embrace it by naming me poet laureate is very satisfying and meaningful.” 

Dawes, whose writing and editing work centers the pan-African experience, joined the faculty in Brown’s Department in Literary Arts in the 2024-25 academic year. He is the author of dozens of books of poetry, along with several works of fiction, essays and criticism. His 2024 book, “Sturge Town: Poems,” was long-listed for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. 

Dawes was honored and officially inaugurated as Jamaica’s fourth poet laureate during a ceremony in Kingston, Jamaica, in late January. 

“I plan to do a lot of work in schools, especially working with teachers to strengthen, and in some ways revive, an interest and a comfort in reading poetry and in teaching poetry,” Dawes said. 

Also on his agenda: bolstering archiving efforts to ensure that there are “strong repositories for the papers and the work of Jamaican poets of the past,” promoting Jamaican poetry through the creation of anthologies, and presenting it on social media, television and radio.

“ For me, celebrating poetry in Jamaica means celebrating the oral tradition, the folk songs, the chants, but also reggae music, the lyrics of DJs, and the ways in which the society articulates its own experience through poetic means. ”

Kwame Dawes Brown University Professor of Literary Arts

Dawes has formed a team of about a dozen writers, educators, editors and media professionals in Jamaica who will assist with his efforts. “Together, the support team and I are going to make things happen in a very exciting way,” he said. 

Dawes joined the Brown faculty following 14 years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He founded and directs the African Poetry Book Fund, a project that promotes the writing and publication of African poetry through a wide range of programming and activities. The project, which he leads with his wife, Lorna Dawes — who is an exploration and research librarian at the Brown University Library’s Center for Library Exploration and Research — is now housed within Brown’s Department in Literary Arts and the University Library. 

He looks forward to embracing his poet laureate duties while teaching at Brown. 

“I’ve been called the busiest man in literature, and that is my condition,” quipped Dawes, who co-founded Jamaica’s Calabash International Literary Festival.

Dawes moved away from Jamaica when he was 30 but has remained connected to the Caribbean island. He described his teen years there in the 1970s as a powerful time for him personally and for the country. 

“It was a complex period politically, but this was also the period when reggae music emerged as a phenomenon, and Jamaican identity was becoming increasing global in its reach,” he said. 

Dawes considers reggae music to be part of Jamaica's literary culture and plans to embrace it as poet laureate. 

“I do not draw lines of division between poetry and the lyrics of a song,” he said. “For me, celebrating poetry in Jamaica means celebrating the oral tradition, the folk songs, the chants, but also reggae music, the lyrics of DJs, and the ways in which the society articulates its own experience through poetic means.”

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