I wrote this shortly after my diagnosis with stage four/metastatic breast cancer. Surrounded by well-meaning friends, some of whom were telling me how 'strong' and 'brave' I was being, I was often exhorted me to 'kick cancer's arse.' For me, the language of battle and war was completely alien. In response, I was able to identify with compassion towards my cancer as a creature, a living thing with whom I was cohabiting with in this body of mine.

This poem documents the power and frustration of The Big One for Biodiversity, a march organised by Extinction Rebellion on 22 April 2023. It was attended by 60,000 people and so big the front and back of the march met. At that point we all lay in the road for a 'die in' to make visible the destruction we are causing, we played birdsong on our phones and through speakers it was very powerful moment. Nothing has changed despite this mass action.

The poem portrays the trauma of a violent world from birth to death. It highlights the struggle to grow up, the loss of innocence, and the futility of raising children amidst conflict. The speaker questions divine creation and mourns the lives lost. The poem's vivid imagery and emotional depth create a haunting reflection on the impact of violence.

This poem is an attempt at revealing the other side of Black/African history which often is not talked about. It appraises as well as shows forth the individual connection to one’s history. To take from Eliot, it carries the “pastness of the past along with the present”.

My poem began as a multi-sensory response to coloured lights reflected on a wall. Designed for sonic performance, it introduces and evokes sense-perceptions of timbre and rhythm beyond the auditory by using a glossolalic language created during intense concentration. I enjoy producing elements of musicality by combining and extending available senses, which, though I cannot physically hear, can communicate such possibilities to others.

I wrote this poem in early 2023 when I was unable to return to Trinidad for Carnival. It is a consideration of how artists continue their practices despite the myriad, often critical, circumstances that confront them. The reflection is rendered through images of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival and its revolutionary history, to engage global concerns about freedom of expression, the triumph of imagination and the use of art in political advocacy.

This poem is a Duplex, a form created by American poet Jericho Brown. A Duplex has 14 lines, each line has 9 to 11 syllables. The first line must be echoed in the last, the second echoed in the third and so on. In this Duplex, I reflect on sleeplessness as an effect of (maternal) abuse, looking at my experience and how physically escaping does not always lead to psychological relief.

Of the 600,000-800,000 people trafficked yearly, 70 percent are female. Women have a long history of being undervalued and under protected. I wanted to turn that feeling and fear into a short poetic story that displays that history in the everyday actions of women. Something so common as searching for a key or a dress with pockets that puts women at a disadvantage. Something so uncontrolled as being a woman that puts us at a disadvantage.

Colours of Summer is the result of the collision of two contemporary phenomena in several Caribbean islands: an unbearably hot summer exacerbated by climate change, and street festivities or carnivals. Serendipitously, both phenomena cast on our tropical islands, several kaleidoscopic colours, some that bring or exemplify joy and revelry, others that show the harsh and changing climate within which we live; revellers party while the land burns.

This poem is about my older sister moving back into my parents house during lockdown and how I grew to resent her and how she treated me. We've always had a close relationship, and I've always looked up to her even though I'm the more responsible of the two of us. So much tragedy occurred during the pandemic, but instead of coming together as families many people were forced apart by their proximity---an ironic downfall of humanity.

I finally caught Covid in April 2023. As an asthmatic it was something that I had been dreading. I found I couldn’t do anything for several weeks and during that time the news just made me more and more enraged. The rage and the recovery came together in the poem.

This is a poem advocating for a recheck in Climate Change in Africa. We are far subsumed into the belief that climate change is not a threat to us, but it is. When the brunt hits, we will not be protected by the skins of our forefathers that had drowned in the sea.