Patience Requested for Website Migration

We would like to thank you for your patience over the next three weeks while we work on updates to our web site, including our events calendar and room reservation system.  Please call one of the library branches or stop by any service desk if you have questions or issues.  The reward for this hiccup in services will eventually include an all-new library app and improved and fully integrated web services.

Poet, MWSU Dancers Collaborating on Event March 6th

Award-winning poet Kwame Dawes is coming to St. Joseph in March for a special performance of his works, and Rolling Hills Library is helping sponsor the event.

Dawes, an English professor at the University of Nebraska and editor-in-chief of the university’s literary journal, Prairie Schooner, will read his works while Missouri Western dancers perform choreography inspired by his poetry.

The free performance will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 6, in the Potter Hall Theatre at Missouri Western. A reception will follow to celebrate the 2019 edition of The Mochilla Review, Missouri Western’s literary journal.

Born in Ghana in 1962, Dawes moved with his family in 1971 to Jamaica. He graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1983 and then studied and taught at the University of New Brunswick, where he earned a doctorate in comparative literature.

From 1992 to 2012, he taught at the University of South Carolina as an English professor, poet-in-residence and was director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. He won the 1994 Forward Poetry Prize, Best First Collection for his “Progeny of Air” and in 2009 won an Emmy Award for a documentary project about HIV/AIDS in Jamaica that combined poetry, photography and music.

Rolling Hills is one of four sponsors of the event, including Missouri Western, the Prairie Lands Writers Project and St. Joseph Public Library.