Author Reading & Signing: Frederick-Douglass Knowles II

Some voices are meant to be heard. Some poetry is meant to be felt.

Kindred Thoughts is honored to welcome Frederick-Douglass Knowles II, Hartford’s Emeritus Poet Laureate and an internationally celebrated poet, to our bookstore on Saturday, October 24th at 5 PM.

Frederick-Douglass Knowles II brings language to the places where history, love, memory, identity, and lived experience meet. His work does more than occupy the page—it moves through you.

Join us as he shares poems from his powerful new collection, Sinking in Moonlight Alone.

About the book:

What happens when a loved one dies?

What are the final words longed to be said that would aid in the healing process?

What moments would a mourner wish to relive with a loved one?

Sinking in Moonlight Alone accounts the lives of kindred spirits encountering loss.

Communal toil with mental health, addiction, family, friends and desolate decision-making amounting to death are captured in this collection of elegiac verse.

Frederick-Douglass Knowles II laments the lives of loved ones lost while reserving space for collective grievance.

Culturally, western society only allots a limited space to sojourn the magnitude of grievance.

Knowles memorializes members of his small-town communities of Southeastern Connecticut in this confessional empathetic narrative that recounts: the first time he visited his father's Korean War grave; watching the Super Bowl with his mother on the last day of her life; querying the mysterious drowning of a friend ruled a suicide; confronting the pharmaceutical industry over the loss of his nephew to opioid addiction.

This collection unearths a tempest of emotionality that is most often buried beneath the soil of remorse that flowers the garden of the forgotten.

About the Author

Frederick-Douglass Knowles II is a Professor of English at CT State Community College. He is an Emeritus Poet Laureate of Hartford, CT. Knowles has received the Nutmeg Poetry Award and the Connecticut of The Arts Fellow in Artist Excellence for Poetry/ Creative Non-Fiction. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He has collaborated with the Kennedy Center and National Public Radio. Knowles is the author of BlackRoseCity.