Kwame Dawes, First Place winner of Narrative’s Fourteenth Annual Poetry Contest,was born in Ghana and spent much of his life in Jamaica. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, as well as fiction, criticism, and essays. He teaches at George W. Holmes University and in the Pacific MFA Program. In addition, he is the series editor of the African Poetry Book Series, a chancellor for the Academy of American Poets, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His honors include an Emmy Award, the Forward Prize for Poetry, and the Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry.



FIRST PLACE WINNER


The Forgettable Life and Other Poems

by Kwame Dawes

The Forgettable Life

For Mr. D


I do wonder how it is inside of him to live
unknown or unknowable. Not so much the details
of his life: birth, education, travels, the journey to
London to make a life, arriving on a ship in worn
shoes; the return to Kingston, the job, the school,
the factory, the loss of the factory, the house built,
the islands visited, places with small clean humble
rooms, smelling of floor polish and boiled cabbage,

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