Event
Doggerel: An Evening with Reginald Dwayne Betts
Join us on Monday, June 16, 6:00 pm for a reading and conversation with author Reginal Dwayne Betts to celebrate the launch of his new book, Doggerel.
“Doggerel is an apt name for this lovely collection, with the canine hidden in plain sight in its title and coursing through so many of the poems. Betts manages to capture essences of memory, of hope or loss, of oft-overlooked everydayness—in a way that feels surprising and familiar at once.”—Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know
With his transcendent collection of poetry, Felon (Norton, 2019), Reginald Dwayne Betts became our foremost chronicler of the ways prison shapes and transforms American masculinity.
A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Betts is also celebrated for his work as a lawyer and the founder and director of Freedom Reads, a first-of-its-kind organization that is radically transforming access to literature in prison.
Published on the twentieth anniversary of Betts’s release from prison, DOGGEREL is a majestic new volume of poetry that marks a transformative stage in his life and career. This resplendent tableau ruminates on dogs and the ostensibly trivial joys that transform us—peonies blooming, a “symphony” of wine glasses, father-son bike rides, basketball, seeing and being seen, surrendering to a lover’s touch. Channeling dogs both literally and metaphorically, these poems trace everything from the companionship of Betts’s own Jack Russell Terrier to the ways we are dogged by our deepest desires for connection, love, and repair.
On the volume’s title page, Betts offers two definitions of doggerel (DAW-guh-ruhl):
1. of verse: comic, burlesque, and usually composed in irregular rhythm. Also: (of verse or writing) badly composed or expressed; trivial.
2. nah, just a Black man writing poems about his dog, all the dogs he encounters on the street, how having an extra four feet changed his world, then he falls in love.
Betts’s poems then pull us into a revelatory lyrical world. Deploying the pantoum, ghazal, and canzone, he excavates companionship and what it means to bear witness.
—
This event is FREE to the public, but will require advance registration.
Books will be sold onsite by River Bend Bookshop, on the day of the event. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks.
—
Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of three books of poetry, including the best-selling Felon. He is a poet, lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads.
(Photo courtesy of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.)
