| Poetry is your passion, but you also bring performance into the equation. Please tell us what it is was that brought you to poetry? Also, what inspired you to create performances to go along with the poems? |
I started writing poetry when I was in my teens, sixteen or so, but I didn’t start writing seriously, with focus, until a book of some of Edgar Allen Poe’s work showed up at my job when I was about twenty-one. It came, in error, with a shipment of computer books I had ordered. His poem, Alone, spoke to me in such a profound way, described how I felt inside with such accuracy, that I decided that I wanted to be a poet. I didn’t start calling myself a poet until 1998 when I attended a writing workshop at the University of the West Indies in Barbados. It was there that I realized that I had a strong voice, needed to stop doubting myself and that I could declare myself a poet because that was what I felt defined me first.
The performance as-pect of my work came when I realized that I wanted to get my poetry out there. At the time there were no open mic events on the island and the costs of publishing in Bermuda were prohibitive so I, along with a dancer, devised theatrical productions that were largely poetry driven and also involved dance and singing. |
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As I developed as a poet the shows developed into fringe theatre pieces built around verse, using costumes and props created from recycled materials by artists that I knew. Later I co-founded 3 Crabs in a Bucket, to produce yearly events in which poets could present their work in any way they desired. I have been fortunate to be involved in some very special theatre productions here as an amateur and professional actor and I have even been in a film. I view each new acting project as an opportunity to grow as a performer of my own work. |
| Presently, you are being mentored by the poetry editor at Chroma, a literary journal in the UK. Tell our readers how this great opportunity came about and what will be the end result when you finish the program? |
| I had a poem published in Chroma and when they offered their Divine Mentoring Programme I applied. I had to submit work, demonstrate, that I regularly read or performed, had work published in anthologies and journals and was working on a project or projects that could be developed with a view to being published. I was accepted. Now I am working on a major project. At the end of the programme I hope to have a couple of solid manuscripts ready to submit to prospective publishers and to be armed with a more critical eye of my own work. |
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