Kwame Senu Neville Dawes (born 28 July 1962) is a Ghanaian poet, actor, editor, critic, musician, [1] and former Louis Frye Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. He is now Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln [2] [3] and editor-in-chief at Prairie Schooner magazine. [4] [5]

Kwame Dawes serves as the poet laureate of Jamaica as well as the director of the African Poetry Book Fund. He is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska.

"If the poem came from God don’t ask me to edit God." "he ]Kwame] makes these beautiful temporary homes in the language itself, and he sort of stills the language so that it reminds us that a poem can be a home for us, even temporarily - a home that we make out of breath and carefully crafted syllables." Tess Taylor. All Things Considered, NPR.

Kwame Dawes is the author of twenty books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. In 2016 his book, Speak from Here to There, a co-written collection of verse with Australian poet John Kinsella appeared.

4 days ago · 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 ...

Kwame Dawes was born in Ghana and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. The author of more than ten poetry collections, he served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Kwame Dawes is the author of thirty books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collections are Mortality (Peepal Tree Press, 2025) and Sturge Town (WW Norton, 2024), longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Prize 2025.

4 days ago · RI BUSINESS Brown professor Kwame Dawes to serve as poet laureate of Jamaica Dawes, who was born in Ghana, said he plans to work in schools to help revive an interest in reading and teaching poetry

Aug 10, 2016 · Kwame Dawes’s writing combines the personal, the mythical, the spiritual, the political, and the cultural aspects of his diverse background. He is part of the New Generation of Caribbean Writers influenced by authors as diverse as T.S. Eliot, Bob Marley, and Derek Wolcott.

Jun 5, 2024 · Born in Ghana in 1962, Kwame Dawes spent most of his childhood in Jamaica. As a poet, he is profoundly influenced by the rhythms and textures of the country, citing in a recent interview his “spiritual, intellectual, and emotional engagement with reggae music.”