Midland

by Kwame Dawes

The winning manuscript of the fourth annual Hollis Summers Poetry Prize is also the exciting American debut by a poet who has already established himself as an important international poetic voice. Midland, the seventh collection by Kwame Dawes, draws deeply on the poet's travels and experiences in Africa, the Caribbean, England, and the American South. Marked equally by a lushness of imagery, an urgency of tone, and a muscular rhythm, Midland, in the words of the final judge, Eavan Boland, is “a powerful testament of the complexity, pain, and enrichment of inheritance. ... It is a compelling meditation on what is given and taken away in the acts of generation and influence. Of a father’s example and his oppression. There are different places throughout the book. They come willfully in and out of the Jamaica. London. Africa. America. But all the places become one place in the central theme and undersong which is displacement. ... The achievement of this book is a beautifully crafted voice which follows the painful and vivid theme of homelessness in and out of the mysteries of loss and belonging.”Midland is the work of a keen and transcendent intellect, a collection of poems that speaks to the landscape from inside, from an emotional and experiential place of risk and commitment.

Genres: Poetry

103 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 14, 2001

About the author

Born 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.

Reviews

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I need a break from poetry for a moment, nothing is hitting this year. And yes, of course that has everything to do with my choices, I am sure if I managed to choose the right collection I'd enjoy it. But something is off with how I choose.

"Midland" was fine, there is some strong writing and some interesting concepts, but I think I appreciated it more than actually liked it. Some of the pieces seemed a bit rambly to me, as in what was even the point. At one point he even admits himself that he is weird dude who writes weird poems (or so he assumes his friends think of him), and yeah, maybe. I liked that we are in different countries in these poems and you usually distinctly feel setting shift. But overall very little stood out to me, very few made me linger over a line or a moment and that's what I hope to find in poetry. Dawes' writing is of quality, there is solid mix of social issues and more personal pieces. Some I didn't completely understand, as is to be expected. I wish I could remember where I heard about this collection because it seems to have only a small handful of ratings. Sadly it falls into the category of "This was a book I read". Have little to say, I thought it was solid but it left so little resonance with me but I also can't really name anything I actively disliked. I am not even sure why it's called "Midland"....

2.5*

The list of poems that stood out to me: Caricature/ Genocide/ Map Maker/ Umpire at the Portrait Gallery/ History Cartoon/ Crow over Corn Row

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have been born in the epoch of flesh
mongering, the time of moral malaise, to hear
the blues crawling from the steaming dungeons
of first blues folk; their lyric moaning
against the encroaching gloom;
I should have heard the iambic ebb and roll
of sea lapping against an alien shore,
the boom of wind in sails, the quick-repeat
auctioner's scatology, that maddening knocking.
But I've arrived in this other time, waiting
upon an old woman's prayer, to carry the tears and laughter
so long preserved in the tightly knotted hem
of her skirt where she keeps herbs, a broken tooth,
cowrie shells, kola nuts, and the soft lavender
of a wild flower's petals; aged good and strong.
I am gathering the relics of a broken threnody,
lisping psalms—all I have—and crying salt and wet.

[Noel Cisneros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poderosa poesía telúrica que ahonda en las raíces y en el devenir de su voz poética. La búsqueda de las raíces, el encuentro consigo mismo y con el dolor son algunas de las líneas que Dawes explora prodigiosamente en los poemas que componen esta obra. Sus versos finales quizá resumen de mejor manera lo que es esta obra:
...trying to beat back that lament
of a gospel song, blue and rentless as a truth,
unfolding the apostrophe of the hung man dangling
from a live oak like the worm's silk cocoon.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose this to read because it's April, National Poetry Month, and I work below the SC Poetry Archive. I pulled out a bunch of poetry by Kwame Davis because I had recently read and enjoyed some anthologies he edited. He used to teach in SC and thus is considered an SC poet forevermore, but does not in fact live in the state anymore.

This collection of poems reflects Dawes' own life and journeys and the places he has traveled through or called home, and the people he found along the way. I found myself searching for poems about places I had also been; I think I most often am searching for what I know when I read poems.

Some favorites:

Hoarding (about waiting until you are "old enough" to write poetry)
"...She makes lists of poems
to be written: a memory of a mango's taste,
the imperial grace of lilacs, the melody
of a Handel hymn, a lament for the beloved dead."

Ska Memory
"The streets of this city are spaces where the body recalls
the saunter of pleasure and fear, where the possession
of the groove, the maddening tattoo is a relentless language...."

Marriage
"...too young
to know that her eyes carry music
and the subtle whisper of lust....">

Midland
III. In Search of Alma
"...the green grows hungrily over everything
and how quickly the multitude of sins
is covered by the crawling of wisteria and kudzu.
This earth speaks no memories of wrongs done;
there is a sweet politeness here, a way of decency,
the value of perfume in damp kerchiefs outside
the outhouse where the flies buzz rudely...."

[Karen Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read each of these poems at least a half dozen times. The Poems are quite lyrical in the narratives that give shout-out to the genealogy of Caribbean writers as Dawes pays homage and seems to travel a personal journey ending in South Carolina and the story of a friend's family history....there is a strong visual component to the poems as they travel across continents, history, music, with a touch of melancholy but not indulgent. These were poems that I walked around in to absorb the lyricism and the meaning. What I could not quite grasp, the lyrics and diction made the poems inviting to go back into for understanding.