Profile
Dasha Kelly Hamilton: Agent for Creative Change BY J O EY G RI HALVA
D
asha Kelly Hamilton is on a mission. She is leading a poetry workshop in Port Louis, the capital city
of Mauritius, a tropical island about 1,200 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa. Sunlight pours into a narrow room as a group of young people listen to Dasha tell a story about how, as a child, she wanted to change her name. She tugs at her dress as if she were nine years old again. It’s an endearing gesture. Dasha has a magnetic presence, graceful yet piercing. The students lean in closer.
Wisconsin Poet Laureate Dasha Kelly Hamilton stands in front of The Rebirthing of the Earth Mother, a mural artist Tia Richardson created in 2018 for an exterior wall of the Historic Garfield Apartments (originally Garfield Street School) in Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood.
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WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS
