20 pages • 40 minutes read
Kwame DawesDirt
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“Talk” by Kwame Dawes (2010)
Like “Dirt,” this poem expresses the ongoing struggle of African Americans to live in a world in which they have been oppressed. Rather than a quote, the poem is written directly to August Wilson, giving him credit for speaking up on behalf of the downtrodden. Dawes explores themes of silence, shame, and anger, arguing that anger, unexpressed, petrifies a person and a people. The more silent they are “the heavier the stone.” August Wilson, by contrast, creates characters who express their feelings and the feelings of many who have been denied full rights. Wilson carries “every song of affront.” Wilson and the characters he creates say what others have kept hidden with their silence. This teaches “the healing of talk” and “the ritual of living.”
“Marked” by Kwame Dawes (2011)
In this poem, Dawes explores the violence and degradation enacted by humans against other humans. As in “Dirt,” the speaker does not reference a specific group or historical event by name but refers to “those who lament, bewildered / by the wickedness of the people.” The speaker says that the job of the poet is to mark these people with “a stroke of hope,” and to weep for “the blood / of promise.” It echoes themes found in “Dirt,” namely that of finding hope inside of hopeless situations. It ends with a phrase from Patois.
“At Anchor: The Real Situation” by Kwame Dawes (1980)
This poem is dedicated to Bob Marley, one of Dawes’s key influences. Unlike in “Dirt,” the speaker does not dwell on a communal experience but focuses on Bob Marley in the months before his death from cancer. Paying tribute, Dawes explores what it means to be a poet searching for truth. Marley was influenced by the ocean in Jamaica but was diagnosed with cancer while living in Germany away from the sea. In his last days, he boarded a plane to return to Jamaica but had to stop in Florida, where he died, on his way home.
Further Literary Resources
Nebraska Authors, Kwame Dawes by Nebraska Authors (2013)
This YouTube video begins with an interview with Dawes in which he relays the story of how he began writing as a child. He says he was influenced by his father’s writing but that it wasn’t only that. His siblings, who wrote as children, wound up doing other work. He only considered himself a poet after he had published his third book of poetry. After the interview, Dawes reads from Duppy Conqueror, including several poems published alongside “Dirt.” Dawes gives a brief summary of Wilson’s The Piano Lesson and explains that he wrote several poems for Berniece, the character who wants to keep the family piano.
“‘Set Dem Free Again’: Duppy Conqueror and the Invocation of Legacy” by Corinna McLeod (2016)
This article provides analysis of the connection between Dawes’s work in Duppy Conqueror and Bob Marley’s related music and message. Duppy Conqueror is a term that comes from the Rasta religion and is the title of one of Marley’s songs. Marley’s music expressed an alternative vision of history than that of the dominant culture, one that respected Africa and African descendants and saw spiritual tests in the suffering of enslaved persons. Duppy Conqueror also meditates on themes of overcoming challenges, conquering the evil spirits leftover from the past.
“August Wilson” by Kwame Davis (2007)
In this blog entry, posted on The Poetry Foundation website, Dawes discusses the work of August Wilson and insists it is equally as poetic as any poem. Specifically, he discusses Wilson’s Century Cycle, a series of 10 plays written between 1982 and 2005 about the Black experience in Pittsburgh during the 20th century, which was then being released as a single set. He laments that more young people are not aware of Wilson’s work and do not actively engage with theatre. He encourages everyone to familiarize themselves with Wilson’s plays and consider them part of the canon of poetics.
