32 Bar Blues Partners with African Poetry Book Fund
African Poetry Book Fund founder Kwame Dawes is also the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and teaches at the University of Nebraska and the Pacific MFA Program.
PRAIRIE SCHOONER: Can you tell us a little bit about 32 Bar Blues and the organization’s relationships to writers and literary organizations like the African Poetry Book Fund?
32 Bar Blues is a direct-to-consumer company that offers a unique, branded mix of men’s clothing, footwear and accessories that are inspired by the style and craft of the American arts tradition. Since our first collection in 2012, we have featured three pioneering American artists per season in our nationally distributed catalogs. Generally, each catalog features a musician, a poet, and a photographer. One or two works (CD, books, prints) of each featured artist is offered for sale and all profits from sales are sent to the artist. It’s our core belief that American business must celebrate, promote and support the natural resource of arts in America. From the beginning, we have worked towards building a 32 Bar Blues Foundation for the Arts to provide direct support for artists and nonprofit arts organizations. Our partnership with the African Poetry Book Fund is one of the first steps toward the realization of this goal.
We also formed a similar partnership this season with the Jazz Foundation of America to help raise crucial funds for their COVID-19 Musician’s Emergency Fund; and we have an upcoming partnership with Notes for Notes, which designs, equips, and staffs after-school recording studios offering youth the opportunity to explore, create, and record music for free.
Collaborating with Kwame Dawes (African Poetry Book Fund founder) and through special permission with artist Tariku Shiferaw, our creative team designed the African Poetry Book Fund T-shirt collecting all of the cover art from this year’s African Poetry Book Fund Chapbook Box Set – and then we expedited its development for feature in our 56-page Holiday catalog mailed nationwide in mid-November. The t-shirts are $48 each – with all profits from their sale going directly to the African Poetry Book Fund. In addition, we created a special APBF section on our website offering the 2020 SABA African Poets Chapbook Box Set as well as Kwame Dawes’ book, Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius. 100% of the profits received from all of the APBF section items will go to the African Poetry Book Fund.
PS: How did the collaboration with APBF come about?
We featured Kwame Dawes (and his book, Nebraska) as our Voice of the Art through the Spring 2020 season. Our 32 Bar Blues Founder and Chair, Bruce Willard, is also a poet, and through his relationship with Kwame, the APBF partnership developed.
PS: What do you think of the “Written Word” T-shirt and the art by Tariku Shiferaw?
We love the bold, linear quality of Shiferaw’s art and the way these book covers fit together to create a very cool and compelling t-shirt. As our holiday shopping season kicks into high gear, we hope it becomes a popular item.
For more information about the African Poetry Book Fund, click here.
For more information about Tariku Shiferaw’s art, click here.