A Poetry Reading with Ghanaian/Jamaican poet Kwame Dawes and Irish poet John McAuliffe

Born in Ghana in 1962, Kwame Dawes spent most of his childhood and early adult life in Jamaica. He has authored 36 books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and essays, including, most recently, Nebraska (UNP, 2019), Bivouac (Akashic Books, 2019), and City of Bones: A Testament (Northwestern, 2017). He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. As a poet, he is profoundly influenced by the rhythms and textures of Ghana, citing in an interview his “spiritual, intellectual, and emotional engagement with reggae music.”

John McAuliffe was born in 1973 and grew up in Listowel, County Kerry.  He studied English Literature in Galway, before moving, in 2002, to the UK where he still lives. He has published six collections with The Gallery Press. His first, A Better Life (2002), was shortlisted for a Forward Prize. His fifth collection, The Kabul Olympics, was published in April 2020 and was an Observer Poetry Book of the Month. John McAuliffe’s Selected Poems was published in October 2021. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing and Associate Publisher at Carcanet Press.