A Sestina & Video of Kamau's Acceptance of the Griffin Prize

I thought that when I wrote this sestina, http://fwolven.net/aArborReview_IV/AARPg04.htm , my string of rejections would end—you know, the kind of superstitions that writers use against the dark. No such luck. Instead of a stream, a flood.

But in my search for a new publisher, I found this great video of Kamau on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbHQAK2J7NA

Just in case someone drops by and doesn’t know about Kamau Brathwaite , I’ve included the bio:

Kamau Brathwaite, winner of the Griffin Prize 2006, is an internationally celebrated poet, performer, and cultural theorist. Co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement, he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge and has a PhD from the University of Sussex in the UK. He has served on the board of directors of UNESCO’s History of Mankind project since 1979, and as cultural advisor to the government of Barbados from 1975-1979 and again since 1990. Brathwaite has received numerous awards, among them the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize, and the Charity Randall Prize for Performance and Written Poetry. He has received Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, among many others. His book, The Zea Mexican Diary (1992) was The Village Voice Book of the Year. Brathwaite has authored many works, including Middle Passages (1994), Ancestors (2001) and The Development of Creole Society, 1770-1820 (2005). Over the years, he has worked in the Ministry of Education in Ghana and taught at the University of the West Indies, Southern Illinois University, the University of Nairobi, Boston University, Holy Cross College, Yale University and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. Brathwaite is currently a professor of comparative literature at New York University. He divides his time between CowPastor , Barbados and New York City.

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Tags: Caribbean Jamaican author, Jamaican writers Caribbean writers Caribbean authors Caribbean literature Kamau Brathwaite Books Poetry Jamaica Kamau Brathwaite Griffin Prize Barbados