Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Betts
Born February 1, 1980
Occupation poet, teacher
Nationality American
Ethnicity African American
Education Prince George's Community College;
University of Maryland;
Warren Wilson College.

Reginald Dwayne Betts is an American poet, memoirist, and teacher. He is author of A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (Penguin/Avery, 2009), and Shahid Reads His Own Palm (Alice James Books, 2010), winner of the 2010 Beatrice Hawley Award. He is a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow.[1]

Life

According The Washington Post, Betts was an excellent student who veered off-course in high school, and landed himself in more trouble than he had ever imagined. He was sixteen years old and an honors student and class treasurer at Suitland High School, when he and a friend carjacked a man who had fallen asleep in his car. Betts was charged as an adult and spent more than eight years in prison, where he completed high school and began reading and writing poetry. After his release from prison, he found a job working at Karibu Books in Bowie, Maryland, where he was eventually promoted to store manager and founded a book club for African American boys, while attending Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland.[2]

Since then, his honors include a Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference scholarship, the Holden Fellowship to attend the M.F.A. program at Warren Wilson College and a Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. [3] He is a Cave Canem Workshop fellow, and was a full scholarship student at the University of Maryland, where he earned his B.A. He currently teaches poetry with the DC Creative Writing Workshop at Hart Middle School.[4][5] According to USA Today, he is also the national spokesman for the Campaign for Youth Justice, and speaks out for juvenile-justice reform. He also visits detention centers and inner-city schools, and talks to at-risk young people.[6]

In 2012, President Obama announced that Betts had been named a member of the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [7]

His poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including Ploughshares, [8] Crab Orchard Review and Poet Lore.[9]

As of 2013, Reginald Dwayne Betts teaches an Intro to Nonfiction course at Emerson College. He is currently a student at Yale Law School.

Bibliography

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Poetry

Collections

List of poems

Title Year First published Reprinted/collected
What we know of horses 2011 Betts, Reginald Dwayne (2011). "What we know of horses" (PDF). River Styx 85: 37–38. Retrieved 2015-04-20. Henderson, Bill, ed. (2013). The Pushcart Prize XXXVII : best of the small presses 2013. Pushcart Press. pp. 471–473.
A conversation 2006 Betts, Reginald Dwayne (Spring 2006). "A conversation". Beltway Poetry Quarterly 7 (2). Retrieved 2015-04-20.
let me tell you bout the night i died 2008 Betts, Reginald Dwayne (2008). "let me tell you bout the night i died". The Drunken Boat 8 (III-IV). Retrieved 2015-04-20.
Misunderstood 2008 Betts, Reginald Dwayne (2008). "Misunderstood". The Drunken Boat 8 (III-IV). Retrieved 2015-04-20.
Soldier's song 2008 Betts, Reginald Dwayne (2008). "Soldier's song". The Drunken Boat 8 (III-IV). Retrieved 2015-04-20.

Non-fiction

References

External links