Midland

<div> <p>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. <i>Midland</i> 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 <i>Midland</i> 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 poems: Jamaica. London. Africa. America. But all the places become one place in the central theme and undersong here: 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.</p> <p><i>Midland</i> 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.</p> </div>