Cameron Awkward-Rich on Writing Poetry 'In the Break' of Black and Trans Dialectics

The Poetry Vlog (TPV): A Poetry, Arts, & Social Justice Teaching Channel

In this episode of The Poetry Vlog (TPV), Cameron Awkward-Rich reads the poem "Black Feeling" from his book Dispatch (Persea Books, 2019) to lead a discussion on the dialectical complexity within Black and trans social identities. The poem expands on an encounter he has while in transit on the bus with an elder retired cop to contemplate uneven, overlapping, and even paradoxical power dynamics around race, gender, class, sex, sexuality, and education. This episode will be re-edited and adapted with a Critical Framing and sample lesson plans in The Poetry Vlog: Critical Edition. Forthcoming from University of Michigan Press, Fulcrum. Cameron Awkward-Rich holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University, is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and, in addition to Dispatch, is author of Sympathetic Little Monster (Ricochet Editions, 2016). Learn more at https://www.cawkwardrich.com/.

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