Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Dwayne Betts
Reginald Betts at Split this rock, 2016
Born November 5, 1980
Occupation Poet, Teacher, Lawyer
Nationality American
Education Prince George's Community College;
University of Maryland;
Warren Wilson College.
Yale Law School
PhD Candidate at Yale Law School

Reginald Dwayne Betts (born February 1, 1980) is an American poet, memoirist, and teacher. As a result of a carjacking he committed at the age of sixteen, he spent over eight years in prison. He has gone on to author several award-winning works, including poetry, a memoir, and legal scholarship.

Early life and imprisonment

Born in Maryland, Betts was in gifted programs throughout his youth, and in high school was an honors student and class treasurer at Suitland High School in the Washington, D.C. suburb of District Heights, Maryland.[1]

At the age of sixteen, he and a friend carjacked a man who had fallen asleep in his car at the Springfield Mall.[2] Betts was charged as an adult and spent more than eight years in prison (including fourteen months in solitary confinement),[3] where he completed high school and began reading and writing poetry.

Speaking at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in 2016, he said: "I was in solitary confinement.... You could call out for a book and someone would slide one to you. Frequently, you would not know who gave it to you. Somebody slid The Black Poets edited by Dudley Randall. In that book I read Robert Hayden for the first time, Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton. I saw the poet as not just utilitarian but as serving art. In a poem you can give somebody a whole world. Before that, I had thought of being a writer, writing mostly essays and maybe, one day, a novel. But at that moment I decided to become a poet."[4]

In prison, he was renamed Shahid, meaning "witness".[4]

Education, writing, and activism after prison

After serving an eight year prison term,[5] Betts found a job working at Karibu Books in Bowie, Maryland. At the store, 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.[1] He later became a teacher of poetry in Washington, DC,[6] and in 2013, he was teaching an intro to non-fiction course at Emerson College.

Betts 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.[7]

In 2012, President Barack Obama announced that Betts had been named a member of the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.[8]

In 2016, Betts graduated from Yale Law School and passed the Connecticut bar exam. In September 2017, the bar's Examining Committee recommended him for admission, after the bar had rejected his initial application for membership.[9][10] He is currently working on his Ph.D. in law at Yale.[11]

In 2018, he is working as a consultant for the podcast series "Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice", produced by WNYC, which explores cases of children and adolescents who find themselves in the criminal justice system, and the circumstances surrounding their lives and legal cases.

Recognition

Betts' honors include a Bread Loaf Writers' 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.[12] He is a Cave Canem Workshop fellow, and was a full scholarship student at the University of Maryland, where he earned his B.A.[6]

He was a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow.[13]

Writing awards

In 2009, Shahid Reads His Own Palm won the Beatrice Hawley Award for poetry.[14]

In 2010, A Question of Freedom won an NAACP Image Award for non-fiction.[11]

In 2017, his Only Once I Thought About Suicide received the Israel H. Perez Prize for best student comment appearing in the Yale Law Journal.[11][3]

Publications

His poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including Ploughshares,[6][15] Crab Orchard Review, and Poet Lore.[16]

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
External media
Audio
Audio Interview: Ex-Convict Writes About 'A Question of Freedom" Scott Simon, NPR
"Audio Interview: "Coming of Age in Prison- Reginald Dwayne Betts", WAMU The Kojo Nnmadi Show
In 'Bastards Of The Reagan Era' A Poet Says His Generation Was 'Just Lost', Fresh Air, December 8, 2015
Video
Furious Flower presents R. Dwayne Betts, James Madison University, September 17, 2015
"R. Dwayne Betts: A Mind Unconfined by Jail", Craig Wilson, USA Today
Video- Reading & Interview- Reginald Dwayne Betts, USA Today

Poetry

Collections

  • Betts, Reginald Dwayne (2010). Near Burn and Burden: a collection of poems. Warren Wilson College.
  • — (2010). Shahid Reads His Own Palm. Alice James Books. ISBN 9781882295814.
  • — (2015). Bastards of the Reagan Era. Stahlecker Selections. ISBN 9781935536659. [17]

List of selected 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

  • A Question of Freedom: A memoir of learning, survival, and coming of age in prison. Penguin. 2010. ISBN 9781101133361.
  • Betts, Reginald Dwayne (2016). "Only Once I Thought About Suicide". Yale Law Journal Forum. 125: 222. Retrieved October 1, 2017.

References

  1. 1 2 Parker, Lonnae O'Neal (2 October 2006). "From Inmate to Mentor, Through Power of Books". Washington Post. Retrieved 25 September 2017.
  2. ↑ Blake, Meredith (November 30, 2010). "The Exchange: R. Dwayne Betts on prison, poetry, and justice". The New Yorker. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Betts, Reginald Dwayne (2016-01-15). "Only Once I Thought About Suicide". Yale Law Journal. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  4. 1 2 Andre Bagoo, "From prison to poetry", Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, May 30, 2016.
  5. ↑ Gonzalez, Elisa (2016-06-30). "A Decade After Prison, a Poet Studies for the Bar Exam". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  6. 1 2 3 Berg, Laura Van Den (2008-12-11). "New Voices: Reginald Dwayne Betts". Ploughshares Blog. Archived from the original on 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  7. ↑ Craig Wilson, "R. Dwayne Betts: A Mind Unconfined by Jail", USA Today, August 12, 2009.
  8. ↑ White House. "President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts". Retrieved March 15, 2014.
  9. ↑ Robinson, Nathan J. (2017-08-04). "Nothing Will Ever Be Enough". Current Affairs. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  10. ↑ Collins, Dave (September 29, 2017). "Felon who graduated from Yale allowed to become lawyer". Boston.com. Associated Press. Retrieved October 1, 2017.
  11. 1 2 3 "Dwayne Betts - Yale Law School". law.yale.edu. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  12. ↑ Radcliffe. "Reginald Dwayne Betts".
  13. ↑ "The Exchange: R. Dwayne Betts on Prison, Poetry, and Justice". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
  14. ↑ "Beatrice Hawley Award". The Society of the Hawley Family. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  15. ↑ Reginald Dwayne Betts at Ploughshares.
  16. ↑ Author Page > Reginald Dwayne Betts, Alice James Books.
  17. ↑ Michiko Kakutani (October 12, 2015). "Review: 'Bastards of the Reagan Era,' a Book of Poetry". The New York Times. Mr. Betts captures the stark brutality of prison life with chilling, matter-of-fact descriptions, and he evokes the hopelessness that accompanies many prisoners' belief that all narratives end "with cuffs around all wrists, again."
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