RI Poet Laureate Colin Channer shares his work at the Jamestown Public Library on Saturday, April 5th

by Wayne Cresser

Colin Channer, Rhode Island Poet Laureate, will be the Featured Poet at the Jamestown Philomenian Library, 28 North Road on the afternoon of Saturday, April 5 at 2 pm. 
Born in Jamaica, Channer is co-founder of Jamaica’s globally famous Calabash International Literary Festival, serving that organization as artistic director and board chairman from 2001-2012. The three-day festival offers readings by a global constellation of authors at no charge and has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, and Condé Nast Traveler.
Here in Rhode Island, Channer is an associate professor of literature at Brown University, where he is also the director of graduate studies in the Department of Literary Arts. He is also Rhode Island’s seventh Poet Laureate, as well as an internationally recognized fiction writer, and editor whose most recent collection of poetry, Console (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), was named a New Yorker Magazine Best Book of 2023 in addition to being a finalist for the New England Book Award.
According to Channer, “To be named State Poet is a gushy surprise and leveling honor. Poetry is many things, including a reachable, teachable way to strengthen empathy and stretch toward transcendence. It’s also just a bunch of fun.”
Áccording to Pulitzer Prize winning writer Junot Díaz, Colin Channer is “one of the Caribbean Diaspora’s finest writers.”
As part of the Friends of the Jamestown Library’s celebration of National Poetry Month, which was launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, Channer will present his poems and engage in a dialogue with audience members after his reading.
During this time of national and global turmoil and fear, poets and other artists are more important than ever because they have the capacity to remind us of what matters and what is possible.
Please join the Friends of the Jamestown Library for their presentation of RI Poet Laureate Colin Channer at the JPL on the afternoon of Saturday, April 5 at 2 PM.

This event, it should be noted, is the first in a series of literary happenings the friends of the Jamestown Library will present in 2025. Keep checking The Mischief Time Blog for further notices.