MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The art that is poetry for Dasha Kelly Hamilton has been challenged over the past four years by rhetoric, lies, racism, cruelty and violence.
She has found it difficult to find varying themes for her work under the constant din of divisiveness and likens the country’s mood to that of a fluorescent overhead light that hums continually while it tries to go about and cope amid a pandemic, economic strife and political upheaval.
It became more personal last June when her daughter was traumatized during a Milwaukee protest after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which led her to pen the poem, “Hope is a Bruise.”
As the country transitions into a new administration, Kelly Hamilton, the new Wisconsin Poet Laureate, is hopeful that poetry can help a nation heal.
“Art is going to help us reclaim truth,” Kelly Hamilton said. “Art and artists give voice to people’s experiences and insights into their perspectives which is going to either confirm or contradict facts. The truth is what we all experience. How you feel about it is your truth.”
And that healing through poetry and art began at the presidential inauguration when singers like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brooks offered up powerful performances at the U.S. Capitol. They were followed by impassioned verses from the National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, 22, who delivered “The Hill We Climb,” on the same steps that were raided by a violent mob just two weeks earlier.
“We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy,” said Gorman, the youngest person to ever deliver an inaugural poem. “And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith, we trust.”
Kelly Hamilton, selected by the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission, a program of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, is beginning a two-year term designed to keep arts accessible to all age groups, and thrusts her into a role as a statewide emissary for poetry and creativity, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
Her stint includes a $2,500 stipend, a weeklong residency at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point and support from the WPL Commission, which consists of poets and lovers of poetry from across the state. They include members from the Wisconsin Academy, Wisconsin Arts Board, Wisconsin Center for the Book, Wisconsin Humanities, Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, Council for Wisconsin Writers, Chippewa Valley Writers Guild and Write On Door County.
Schooled in marketing and communications at Roosevelt University in Chicago and a resident of Milwaukee since the mid 1990s, Dasha Kelly Hamilton has written for national, regional and local magazines; produced three collections of poetry; recorded four spoken word CDs; published two novels; been included in several anthologies; and performed in the last season of HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam.”
Kelly Hamilton, 51, is the first African American to hold the title and for this year will pull double duty as poet laureate for the city of Milwaukee. Her statewide position runs through the end of 2022 and marks another significant step for the lifelong writer who added poetry to her repertoire about 25 years ago.
“Dasha Kelly Hamilton’s infectious energy and demonstrated history of transforming lives through the written and spoken word makes her the perfect ambassador for poetry in the state of Wisconsin,” said Nick Demske, chair of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. “Her reputation precedes her, and we know that Wisconsin residents will benefit in many ways from this outstanding poet.”
Other finalists for the position were Nicholas Gulig of Fort Atkinson and C. Kubasta of Oshkosh. Gulig, a Thai-American, is a professor at UW-Whitewater and author of “Orient” and “North of Order,” and who in 2017 won the Wisconsin People & Ideas Poetry Contest. Kubasta is a poet, fiction writer and educator in Oshkosh whose published works include “Of Covenants” and “A Lovely Box.”
Kelly Hamilton is a self-described “creative change agent” who has merged her talents of writer, performance artist, curator and facilitator into human and social wellness initiatives. She has for years mentored and coached youth for Brave New Voices, an international poetry slam festival and for a time led the Black Achievers Program at the Milwaukee YMCA.
Her nonprofit, Still Waters Collective, was born out of adult, open-mic poetry nights at a Milwaukee night club but morphed into programs for schools and other organizations. Still Waters has further evolved into employment, leadership development and career training for its alumni from ages 18 to 25.
Schooled in marketing and communications at Roosevelt University in Chicago and a resident of Milwaukee since the mid 1990s, Kelly Hamilton has written for national, regional and local magazines; produced three collections of poetry; recorded four spoken word CDs; published two novels; been included in several anthologies; and performed in the last season of HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam.” She served as an arts envoy for the U.S. Embassy to teach, perform and facilitate community-building initiatives in Botswana and the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, and was an artist in residence in Beirut.
A collection of her micro stories, “DashNettes: Life, in Short,” was released last fall and she has a one-person stage production, “Makin’ Cake,” set to tour nationally later this year to engage communities on issues of race, class and equity.
“Being introduced to the pulse of (poetry) and not the craft I was able to build a relationship to it on my terms,” Kelly Hamilton said. “You don’t have to be a professional singer to enjoy singing. Poetry is the same way. You don’t have to be an expert and a scholar to appreciate and claim that you like poetry.”
That’s why her missions over the next two years include bringing poetry to those in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, its urban centers and rural communities alike. She’s planning a virtual poetry program she calls “A Line Meant” that will let poets and non-poets connect and interpret single lines of poetry.
She also wants to expand her work with prison inmates, something she has been doing steadily over the past 15 years. One of her programs would create a pen pal poetry program that connects prison inmates with other residents of the state without disclosing addresses.
“I have just experienced this community that needs it in a different way and for different reasons,” Kelly Hamilton said. “Those folks receiving a letter with a poem in it gives them one more day of celebrating their own humanity. And someone outside of prison who’s never considered or never thought of receiving a poem that just happens to be from an inmate, can’t do anything but shift a perception or remind them that these are humans that are in these buildings. And across the board, everybody gets to celebrate poetry so everybody wins.”
For now, Kelly Hamilton, like the much of the rest of the world, is working remotely from home. Only her base until this summer is Anchorage, Alaska. This is where she and her husband, Kima Hamilton, who is from there and whom she met while they were both coaching the Brave New Voices program, are riding out the pandemic.
Her sequestration in the nation’s largest state by geography has allowed Kelly Hamilton to briefly step back and reflect on her new role focused on her home state more than 3,400 miles away.
“Every cell in my body has kept me on this path. It hasn’t always been obvious and most times I didn’t know where it was taking me,” Kelly Hamilton said.
“I’ve been emotionally enriched by the people who have invited me into their conversations. The places I’ve been invited to travel, the things I’ve been able to write and share, I’m absolutely blessed.”
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