Alison Rollins, winner of the fifth annual Maya Angelou Book Award, kicks off her Missouri tour with a reading from, and discussion of, her book, Black Bell.

The poems explore themes of history, resistance, and liberation. Rollins, this year’s Cockefair writer-in-residence, describes how, in the 18th and 19th centuries, slave owners chained enslaved people to bells to stop them from escaping, a practice that inspired the title.

Guest judge and fellow award-winner for poetry, Taylor Byas, called the work an “exceptional blend of formal craft, lyricism, music, and humor, adding that she “gasped, cried, laughed, read the poems aloud, and danced along with their music.”

Rollins was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and is now an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Named for the acclaimed Missouri-born memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist, the prize celebrates contemporary writers whose work demonstrates their commitment to social justice. It alternates annually between poetry and fiction.

The Kansas City Public Library, the Carolyn Benton Cockefair Chair in Continuing Education at UMKC, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri State University, and the universities of Northwest Missouri State, Truman State, and Southeast Missouri State established the Maya Angelou Book Award in 2020. It includes a $10,000 stipend and tour stops.

This event is presented in partnership with the Carolyn Benton Cockefair Chair in Continuing Education at UMKC.