POEMS ABOUT DOGS with UTSA Arts, Carver Community Cultural Center, Gemini Ink

10:00 am - 10:45 am
| Location of Session: Latino Collection Resource Center
Adult Sessions

Start of Signing: 11:00 AM
| Signing Location: Adult Signing Tent

My Schedule

About the Event

Reginald Dwayne Betts is our foremost chronicler of the ways prison shapes and transforms American life. In Doggerel, Betts examines this subject through a more prosaic—but equally rich—lens: dogs. He reminds us that as our lives are broken and put back together, the only witness often barks instead of talks. This session is supported by UT San Antonio Arts, the Carver Community Cultural Center, and Gemini Ink.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Justin Marantz

Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, lawyer, and the Founder & CEO of Freedom Reads, an initiative to radically transform access to literature in prisons.

Dwayne transformed his 2019 collection of poetry, Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post-incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of papermaking. On Friday, April 10, he will be performing Felon: An American Washi Tale at the Carver Cultural Community Center (link to tickets) in partnership with UTSA Arts and Gemini Ink.

Dwayne won a National Magazine Award for his New York Times Magazine essay “Getting Out,” which chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He is a MacArthur Fellow and has been awarded fellowships from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the National Endowment for the Arts, Emerson Collective, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Dwayne holds a JD from Yale Law School.

Dwayne is the author of a memoir and five collections of poetry. His latest poetry book is Doggerel.

Moderator

Alexandra van de Kamp

Alexandra van de Kamp is the Executive Director for Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s Writing Arts Center. Her third book of poems, Ricochet Script, was published by Next Page Press in April 2022. Her previous full-length collections include: Kiss/Hierarchy (Rain Mountain Press 2016) and The Park of Upside-Down Chairs (CW Books 2010). She has also published several chapbooks, including “A Liquid Bird Inside the Night” (Red Glass Books 2015) and “Dear Jean Seberg” (2011), which won the 2010 Burnside Review Chapbook Contest. Her poems have been published in journals nationwide, such as The Cincinnati Review, Connecticut Review, The Texas Observer, Denver Quarterly, AMP, Washington Square, 32Poems, Tahoma Literary Review, and Sweet: A Literary Confection. Poems are forthcoming in Moon City Review, Spoon River Review, and Thimble Literary Magazine. Her work has been nominated for five Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net.