Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Dwayne Betts was raised the only child of a single mother in Suitland, MD. At sixteen years old he carjacked a man and began the journey that would end with a nine year prison sentence in some of the toughest adult prisons in Virginia.

The day he was released Dwayne walked into the world committed to proving his life wouldn’t be reduced to the thirty seconds he held a gun in his hand. Since that day, Dwayne has had his poetry published in many national literary journals and contributed an essay to Marita Golden’s anthology It’s All Love. He has been awarded the Holden Fellowship from MFA program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. A Cave Canem fellow, his poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Crab Orchard Review and Poet Lore among others. He is a Breadloaf Writer’s Conference scholarship recipient and a graduate of Prince George’s Community College in Largo, MD and the University of Maryland in College Park, MD. He was recently given the honor of addressing his fellow graduates.

Betts was born February 1, 1980) is the winner of the 2010 Beatrice Hawley Award, a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow, and a 2016 graduate of the Yale Law School.