In the latest in a series of articles for the “City Folk” section of City Paper, American Studies Folklorist in Residence Michelle Stefano writes about a former steelworker who recently was awarded a prestigious poetry prize. Stefano’s profile of Afaa Michael Weaver titled, “Working-Class Hero,” was published April 23.
In the column, Stefano traces Weaver’s journey from working at Sparrows Point Steel Mill to becoming a full professor in the English department at Simmons College, where just last month he was awarded the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a $100,000 prize given by Claremont Graduate University each year for an outstanding published collection. She writes, “he says he feels ‘perpetually displaced’: the tension of belonging both to his roots in skilled labor and to the academy.”
To read the full column in City Paper, click here.
