Reginald Dwayne Betts in The Nation

Reginald Dwayne Betts (poetry, ’10) was recently interviewed by Sri Lankan newpaper, The Nation:

I think I just write what I’m focusing on, what is troubling me, what I want to think more about. In the past I haven’t tried to confront certain issues with the justice system directly in poetry – write poems that deal with juvenile certification, or the drug trade. Now though, I feel like for the poems to be true to me they have to work those ideas in, because I know to do that, I’ll end up challenging myself as a writer. I’ll end up figuring out how to be poetic and not dogmatic, or how to be both...[Read the Full Interview]…

Reginald is the author of the poetry collection Shahid Reads His Own Palm (2010, Alice James Books).