Jamaican-born author Colin Channer has been named Rhode Island’s seventh Poet Laureate. The announcement was made by Governor Dan McKee.
“Colin Channer is an achieved author whose expertise and work have touched the lives of so many individuals,” said Governor McKee. “I’m excited to see him proceed his craft right here within the Ocean State the place he won’t simply be a pacesetter in poetry however function a poetry and literary inspiration to Rhode Islanders throughout our state.”
Lynne McCormack, Government Director for the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, expressed enthusiasm for Governor McKee’s choice, saying, “We’re thrilled with Governor McKee’s alternative of such an achieved, distinguished, and nationally acknowledged poet. We’re wanting ahead to following him as he builds appreciation and participation in poetry and literary actions all through the state.”
Governor McKee appointed Channer to the function beneath a five-year time period. The place was established by the Rhode Island Normal Meeting in 1987.
An illustrious profession
Colin Channer is internationally famend as a poet, fiction author, and editor. His newest ebook, the poetry assortment Console (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), earned accolades together with being named a New Yorker Journal Finest Ebook of 2023 and being a finalist for the New England Ebook Award.
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All through his illustrious profession, Channer has garnered quite a few honors, together with a 2023 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, a 2023 Richard B. Salomon College Analysis Award from Brown College, and a 2022 Fellowship from the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Heart for Students and Writers on the New York Public Library.
Reflecting on his appointment, Colin Channer remarked, “To be named State Poet is a gushy shock and leveling honor. Poetry is many issues, together with a reachable, teachable technique to strengthen empathy and stretch towards transcendence. It’s additionally only a bunch of enjoyable. … I used to be born fortunate, as my mom Phyllis, a retired pharmacist, simply likes to say. This stunning honor proves her level. And hey, she’s at all times proper!”
Life in Jamaica
Colin Channer, the youngest of 4 youngsters, was born in Kingston, Jamaica. His writing journey commenced throughout his education at Ardenne and Meadowbrook Excessive Colleges, the place he started by crafting love poems and different correspondence for fellow male college students, charging $1 for letters and an extra 50 cents for poems.
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After finishing highschool, Channer migrated to New York on July 24, 1982, with aspirations of pursuing a profession in journalism. Nonetheless, it was his encounter with Caryl Phillips’ novel, “The Last Passage,” that opened his eyes to the potential of fiction writing, significantly from an genuine Caribbean, and particularly Jamaican, perspective. Impressed by this realization, Channer pursued a B.A. in Media Communications at CUNY Hunter Faculty.
Channer, presently serving as an Affiliate Professor & the Director of Graduate Research within the Division of Literary Arts at Brown College, can also be the co-founder of Jamaica’s Calabash Worldwide Literary Competition. He served as inventive director and board chairman of the pageant from 2001-2012.
