watchensee

My heart is full from a poetry-filled week leading up to World Poetry Day! 🥲💗

It was a profound honour to be shortlisted for the ’s Edward Baugh Prize this year. Though I didn’t place in the end, I received honourable mention and encouraging feedback from the judging panel. A big thank you to everyone who reached out with congratulations, read my poem “Act of Penitence”, and voted for me for the People’s Choice Award 🫶🫶

This moment feels like a major milestone. In 2024, and I entered the competition together. Neither of us made it to the shortlist that year, and I look back on those poems and cringe HEAVILY. 💀 This year, Jomo placed second and I was shortlisted! Ketch kin teet!! 😁 (Slide 1). I’ve been quietly reading and writing many poems for my MFA, encountering those inevitable moments of doubt, and this recognition makes those unseen hours all the sweeter.

I also got to judge UWI ’s Poetry Clash alongside & , witness our Poet Laureate .dawes read at his alma mater, and die of laughter at poet philosopher ’s performance for Kingston Poetry Week (Big up for organizing! 💫)

It all culminated at the NLJ Poet Laureate Prize Award Ceremony under the theme “Replenishment”, where we witnessed legends, like & , share the stage with emerging voices. Y’all. Remember this name: Gabrielle Campbell. Scroll to Slide 7 for a snippet of her performance, or check out ’s YouTube. I was blown away.

Thank you, poets and poetry, for this replenishment. The empire continues to bomb innocent people, the climate crisis continues to worsen, and oppression continues to dig its talons into our world, but we must keep going. We must keep writing and chronicling these times, for it is how we will hold onto our humanity.

I shudder at being called an expert
Me? I haven’t put in that effort
Automatically disqualifying myself
Because I’m not someone else

I’m not who they think I am.

What about all those times
You did something right?
No. Your only recollections
Are times you required correction

But maybe you’re not the only one
Making it up as you go along
Everyone is an impostor
And that means you belong

Acrylic on canvas (2020)