When you read a book of poetry in a single day, if not a single sitting, you are more likely to appreciate that poet's particular cadences and diction in your head than if you just read a poem here or there.
In this case, because Kwame Dawes was my thesis advisor and teacher at Pacific University's MFA program, I have the advantage of already knowing what his actual voice sounds like, the timbre and slight accent. The same man whose praise bolstered me for years and whose, "I don't believe that you believe that," about a particular line here or there still has me questioning anything I write that might be (even if I don't realize it at first) less than sincere. Sturge Town is my favorite Dawes book to date. I love it for that very trait that Kwame encouraged in me: honesty. Honest self-reflection, and a sense of one's place in the world, his or her personal history.
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