Published: January 31, 2019
UT English Professor Erica Dawson to Read from Her New Book, When Rap Spoke Straight to God, on Feb. 7
On Thursday, Feb. 7, The University of Tampa will host a reading by Erica Dawson, associate professor of English and writing and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program, who will share from her book-length poem, When Rap Spoke Straight to God. The event, which is part of the University’s Honors Program symposia series, begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Crescent Club on the ninth floor of the Vaughn Center and is free and open to the public.
Published by Tin House in September 2018, When Rap Spoke Straight to God navigates belief, black lives, the tragedies of Trump and the boundaries of being a woman. A mix of traditional forms where sonnets mash up with sestinas morphing to heroic couplets, When Rap Spoke Straight to God insists that while you may recognize parts of the poem’s world, you can’t anticipate how it will evolve.
The New York Times Magazine said Dawson’s poetry “is devoted to filling in the cultural blanks that hover around such phrases. In a country where power has been persistently defined as white and male, she writes from the perspective of a black woman. She shows us scenes that might otherwise remain unseen.”
The New York Times Magazine said Erica Dawson’s poetry "is devoted to filling in the cultural blanks that hover around such phrases."
Dawson is the author of two previous collections of poetry: The Small Blades Hurt, winner of the 2016 Poets’ Prize, and Big-Eyed Afraid, winner of the 2006 Anthony Hecht Prize. Her work has appeared in Barrow Street, Bennington Review, three editions of Best American Poetry, Crazyhorse, Harvard Review, Life: 50 Poems Now, the Pushcart Prize XLII: Best of the Small Presses, Rebellion, Resistance, Virginia Quarterly Review and numerous other journals and anthologies.
Dawson teaches undergraduate courses and low-residency graduate courses in the UT English and writing department, and specializes in contemporary American poetry, Shakespearean drama, the Cavalier poets, and aesthetics and poetics.
For more information, contact Dawson at edawson@ut.edu.
