Conditions in Haiti's Recently Collapsed Penitentiary
An inside look at the dangerous conditions inside Haiti's collapsing national penitentiary.
An inside look at the dangerous conditions inside Haiti's collapsing national penitentiary.
Livehopelove.com feels like a plane ticket, a passport, something that helps you get from here to there. The website, a reporting project on HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting , features interviews, music, photos and poems.
Together, the story told is about living and dying with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica.
"Most of my friends are dying -- the thing is, they know it, and the others are busy nursing the dying: God's cruel edits."
Poet Kwame Dawes provided the words for HOPE & Wisteria, two back-to-back performance pieces that explore different aspects of the black experience. But his contribution, vital as it is, is only one part of the puzzle. Each production is a multimedia piece using music, images and Dawes' poetry.
The musicians and singers, performing alongside Dawes on stage, contribute immensely to the power of the production, as do the photographers whose work is projected on a large screen behind the performers.
In an interview on The Root, poet Kwame Dawes discusses his role and shares his experience in creating the multimedia project "Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica," commissioned by the Pulitzer Center to document the human face of HIV in Jamaica, the country of Kwame's youth.
Learn more about the Emmy-winning LiveHopeLove.com
Although it's called the Black Theatre Festival, this biennial gathering of African-American artists draws creative people from all over the nation working in a variety of mediums. Kwame Dawes, the poet in residence at the University of South Carolina, will present his multimedia productions titled Wisteria and Hope during the festival. [For complete performance listings, see page 20.] Wisteria and Hope are two separate pieces performed back to back.
Tune in to North Carolina Public Radio's "The Story" to hear Kwame Dawes talk about HOPE, his poetry that will be performed at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, on August 6 and 7.
Dr Kwame Dawes will stage LIVE! HOPE! LOVE! at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts at the University of the West Indies on Sunday at 11 a.m.
"Hope's Hospice," a collection of poetry by Kwame Dawes inspired by his Pulitzer Center-sponsored reporting in Jamaica, was called "sublime" in a review by The Jamaica Gleaner. The poetry, which largely handles the impact of AIDs on Jamaican society, is accompanied by photographs by Joshua Cogan. According to The Gleaner, the collection "will jolt you from your slumber and spur you to think, to act" about AIDs "without being preachy."
This week's poem by Kwame Dawes is entitled "Portmore."
Don't forget to vote LiveHopeLove.com for the People's Voice Award at the Webbys! Voting ends April 30!
This Saturday, December 1, is World AIDS Day, a moment each year for special focus on the epidemic. Two hours away from American shores people face this epidemic daily. The Dominican Republic and Haiti boast the highest rates in this hemisphere of the virus that leads to AIDS. And it is a story that has been overlooked in the American mainstream media.