Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Reginald Dwayne Betts gets a MacArthur Fellowship

The MacArthur Foundation announced their Fellows for 2021 yesterday; I was pleased to see three poets on the list: Reginald Dwayne Betts, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Don Chee Moi. Although I've long wanted to get books by the other two, Betts is the only one whose books are in my library; I used his collection "Felon" in my Contemporary Poetry Seminar last fall. I've also read his previous collection, "Bastards of the Reagan Era", as well as "Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison", his memoir of the years he spent in jail after a carjacking when he was sixteen (and tried as an adult).  (Andrew Shields, #111words, 29 September 2021)

 

https://www.macfound.org/media/photos/betts_2021_hi-res-download_2.jpg
Photo from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation



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