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Sturge Town
In this stunning volume, acclaimed poet Kwame Dawes explores the mythic, ancestral, and spiritual journeys that make up a life.
The site of the ruined ancestral home of Kwame Dawes’s family, in one of the earliest post-slavery free villages in Jamaica, Sturge Town is at once a place of myth and, for Dawes, a metaphor of the journeying that has taken him from Ghana, through Jamaica, and to the United States. The poet ranges through time, pursued by a keen sense of mortality, and engages in an intimate dialogue with the reader—serious, confessional, alarmed, and sometimes teasing. Whether finding beauty in the quotidian or taking astonishing imaginative leaps, these poems speak movingly of self-reflection, family crises, loss, transcendence, the shattering realities of political engagement, and an unremitting investment in the vivid indeterminacy of poetry.
From “Recall”
Oh, pipe me back to my familiar earth,
for it is slipping slowly from me.
The site of the ruined ancestral home of Kwame Dawes’s family, in one of the earliest post-slavery free villages in Jamaica, Sturge Town is at once a place of myth and, for Dawes, a metaphor of the journeying that has taken him from Ghana, through Jamaica, and to the United States. The poet ranges through time, pursued by a keen sense of mortality, and engages in an intimate dialogue with the reader—serious, confessional, alarmed, and sometimes teasing. Whether finding beauty in the quotidian or taking astonishing imaginative leaps, these poems speak movingly of self-reflection, family crises, loss, transcendence, the shattering realities of political engagement, and an unremitting investment in the vivid indeterminacy of poetry.
From “Recall”
Oh, pipe me back to my familiar earth,
for it is slipping slowly from me.
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
Published January 1, 2023
About the author
Kwame Dawes
123 books182 followersBorn in Ghana in 1962, Kwame Dawes spent most of his childhood and early adult life in Jamaica . As a poet, he is profoundly influenced by the rhythms and textures of that lush place, citing in a recent interview his "spiritual, intellectual, and emotional engagement with reggae music." His book Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius remains the most authoritative study of the lyrics of Bob Marley.
His 11th collection of verse, Wisteria: Poems From the Swamp Country, was published in January 2006. In February, 2007 Akashic Books published his novel, She's Gone and Peepal Tree Books published his 12th collection of poetry, Impossible Flying, and his non-fiction work, A Far Cry From Plymouth Rock: A Personal Narrative.
His essays have appeared in numerous journals including Bomb Magazine, The London Review of Books, Granta, Essence, World Literature Today and Double Take Magazine.
In October, 2007, his thirteenth book of poems, Gomer's Song will appear on the Black Goat imprint of Akashic Books. Dawes has seen produced some twenty of his plays over the past twenty-five years including, most recently a production of his musical, One Love, at the Lyric Hammersmith in London .
Kwame Dawes is Distinguished Poet in Residence, Louis Frye Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts and Founder and executive Director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. He is the director of the University of South Carolina Arts Institute and the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, which takes place in Jamaica in May of each year.
His 11th collection of verse, Wisteria: Poems From the Swamp Country, was published in January 2006. In February, 2007 Akashic Books published his novel, She's Gone and Peepal Tree Books published his 12th collection of poetry, Impossible Flying, and his non-fiction work, A Far Cry From Plymouth Rock: A Personal Narrative.
His essays have appeared in numerous journals including Bomb Magazine, The London Review of Books, Granta, Essence, World Literature Today and Double Take Magazine.
In October, 2007, his thirteenth book of poems, Gomer's Song will appear on the Black Goat imprint of Akashic Books. Dawes has seen produced some twenty of his plays over the past twenty-five years including, most recently a production of his musical, One Love, at the Lyric Hammersmith in London .
Kwame Dawes is Distinguished Poet in Residence, Louis Frye Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts and Founder and executive Director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. He is the director of the University of South Carolina Arts Institute and the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, which takes place in Jamaica in May of each year.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 12, 2024
This is a long collection and he's very prolific, but still there are several really superb poems in here. In recent years some really 'difficult' collections have been getting the limelight and awards too often for my liking. This is a refreshing exception. Rich, thoughtful poems that don't disappear up their own solipsistic ***. Poets like this who respect their readers is what the world needs.
April 16, 2025
“The stranger says to the poet, / ‘I know nothing of poetry / but I know you are / the chroniclers / of the heart; I know / you are spies who slip / under cover of darkness / into fortified cities / and collect the dreams / of the living and the dead…”
This is a book that takes multiple lifetimes to write. Fragmented but refuses the reduction the poetic form inherently promises. Timeless and meditative, political and personal and persistent. Historical fact cannot hold emotional fact, and the poet fills these gaps. An incredibly fluid portrait of the way one location can hold infinite lifelines.
This is a book that takes multiple lifetimes to write. Fragmented but refuses the reduction the poetic form inherently promises. Timeless and meditative, political and personal and persistent. Historical fact cannot hold emotional fact, and the poet fills these gaps. An incredibly fluid portrait of the way one location can hold infinite lifelines.
July 25, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton for the ARC!
Kwame Dawes’s Sturge Town is a collection of sturdy but sparse poems that feels hampered by its length.
Poetry is subjective, so take these critiques with a fistful of salt.
I think good poems feel like watching a skilled dancer—the years of rehearsal are so effective that they are never felt. Every gesture feels birthed in the moment it appears, and the beauty and mystery of the art is the feeling that it could never be witnessed again.
Sturge Town doesn’t feel that way to me.
Although these poems are very competently written, they feel mechanically self-conscious, like seeing a dancer silently keep time or strain to hit their mark. Much of this seems rooted in the book’s length, which causes the specific dimensions of each poem to gradually lose their shape. It’s a shame because Dawes has clearly put so much intention and care into these pieces—it’s just that his voice becomes indistinct in such an expansive volume.
Ultimately, I found myself wanting to see the poet take more risks. His writing feels very traditional—one might say archaic—and, for me, it curbs any potential momentum. Kwame Dawes displays a surgical steadiness, but the excitement of poetry is that sometimes it’s okay to let your hand slip.
Kwame Dawes’s Sturge Town is a collection of sturdy but sparse poems that feels hampered by its length.
Poetry is subjective, so take these critiques with a fistful of salt.
I think good poems feel like watching a skilled dancer—the years of rehearsal are so effective that they are never felt. Every gesture feels birthed in the moment it appears, and the beauty and mystery of the art is the feeling that it could never be witnessed again.
Sturge Town doesn’t feel that way to me.
Although these poems are very competently written, they feel mechanically self-conscious, like seeing a dancer silently keep time or strain to hit their mark. Much of this seems rooted in the book’s length, which causes the specific dimensions of each poem to gradually lose their shape. It’s a shame because Dawes has clearly put so much intention and care into these pieces—it’s just that his voice becomes indistinct in such an expansive volume.
Ultimately, I found myself wanting to see the poet take more risks. His writing feels very traditional—one might say archaic—and, for me, it curbs any potential momentum. Kwame Dawes displays a surgical steadiness, but the excitement of poetry is that sometimes it’s okay to let your hand slip.
November 27, 2025
I really struggled to get through this book. I wanted to like it much more than I did. As is common for books that hit me this way, I can recognize the author’s technical skill - I didn’t want to give up on the book because it felt like there was something there. That said, there were glimmers of lines here and there that I could get inside, but most of all the author’s voice felt like an obstacle to me. It was an odd combination of formal and raunchy and I never felt I could get a handle on it. The author seemed to be working out feelings about relationships with women, but this seemed to be done at a remove. A number of poems were from a female perspective, and I felt painfully aware of them as a man taking a female perspective - I could feel the male author looming over that perspective in a way that was almost unsettling. This is the sort of book that makes me feel like I don’t know how to read poetry, since I felt so outside it. I am disappointed I couldn’t find more in it.
September 29, 2025
It's an enjoyable collection on the whole. It overstays its welcome a little and would have benefited from being briefer. There's such an array of poems here which vary from the personal and profound to the superficial. He's a great voice but I don't see myself circling back to this volume.
April 1, 2024
'when I said, “All is changed, / my self, known and loved, is gone,” I was opening my heart’s / hunger to the persistence of these wounds of loss.'
October 11, 2024
wading through the water
October 11, 2024
A collection that serves as a remarkable example of how the context /culture in which one reads poetry can influence impact so greatly. “Wanderer” resonates as a Trumpian xenophobic teeth-grinder.
August 3, 2025
I have been reading this book for a whole year.
Really, this could have been several books.
It does contain some gems, though. Lovely images, haunting ones. But so many of them.
Really, this could have been several books.
It does contain some gems, though. Lovely images, haunting ones. But so many of them.
April 23, 2025
Sturge Town is a slow moving, steady, and quite a sexy collection of poems thst capture the heat, joy, danger, and despair of Jamaica.
May 27, 2024
Since having seen and listened to Kwame Dawes at Verse Like Water in Brained, MN, I have become an ardent fan. Even so, Sturge Town has surprised me with its masterful mix of virtuosity and humanity. For fans of Derek Walcott, perhaps.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews