Gomer's Song Paperback by Kwame Dawes

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2007-09-04)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 72 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781933354446
• Item Weight: 368.55 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

Award-winning poet Kwame Dawes explores the insidious nature of power and the limits of protest for Chris Abani’s Black Goat poetry series.

 Gomer’s Song is a contemporary reinterpretation of a Bible story. Gomer, a harlot, was the wife of the Old Testament prophet Hosea. But even after her marriage to Hosea, she refused to conform to her expected role. In Gomer, poet Kwame Dawes finds the subject for a beautiful contemporary exploration on the cost of arriving at freedom with an uneasy grace.

Dawes examines the insidious nature of power, the expectations of gender roles, and the limits of protest. Through Gomer’s journey, we are asked to consider how each one of us must articulate not only our own defiance, but tally the costs of earning our individuality. Gomer’s Song is a great fable for finding our humanity in the confusion of a post-9/11 world. This is tender a book with profound lyrical insights.

About the Author

KWAME DAWES is the author of numerous books of poetry and other works of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent poetry collection, Sturge Town, was published by Peepal Tree Press in the UK and W. W. Norton in the US. Dawes is a professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. He also teaches in the Pacific MFA Program and is the series editor of the African Poetry Book Series, director of the African Poetry Book Fund, and artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He is a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Dawes is the winner of the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2022, Kwame Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander Class by the Government of Jamaica, and in 2024, he was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica.