Gillian Cal­iste

Per­haps the an­swer lies in the con­struc­tion of her telling of­fer­ings or in their de­liv­ery. Even she de­fers to her moth­er's opin­ion–“My mum says it's my sin­cer­i­ty, that my words reach the heart and linger long af­ter”–when asked what sets her apart from the rest. But with a third vic­to­ry un­der her belt, the 2022 First Cit­i­zens Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam (FC­NPS) win­ner and spo­ken word artist Alexan­dra Stew­art has proven that she has a knack for mak­ing her mes­sages hit home.

It was at the 10th an­niver­sary of the FC­NPS or Grand­slam held at the Na­pari­ma Bowl on Oc­to­ber 9 that Stew­art made her mem­o­rable mo­ment of top­ping the field for the third time. She has the dis­tinct ho­n­our of be­ing the first per­son to do so, adding to her pre­vi­ous ground­break­ing achieve­ment of be­ing the first to win con­sec­u­tive­ly, hav­ing copped the ti­tle in 2019 and 2020. Since 2017, Stew­art has placed five times in the event or­gan­ised by Bo­cas Lit Fest, mak­ing her the most dec­o­rat­ed Slam com­peti­tor.

For her ef­forts, she was re­ward­ed with a grand prize of $50,000, cur­rent­ly, the largest purse of­fered in any po­et­ry slam world­wide. Sec­ond-place win­ner Kevin Soy­er re­ceived $20,000 and de­throned FC­NPS cham­pi­on Der­ron Sandy, who came in third, col­lect­ed $10,000. Soy­er shone a light on nepo­tism in the work­place, while Sandy ex­plored con­cerns about teach­ers. Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes was among the judges.

Ad­mit­ted­ly dizzy with joy when she heard the re­sults, Stew­art told Sun­day Guardian she was grate­ful for the bless­ing of mak­ing his­to­ry at the Slam for yet an­oth­er time.

“Writ­ing is a huge part of my life. I con­stant­ly in­vest time, en­er­gy and fo­cus in­to sharp­en­ing my skills and mas­ter­ing the art form. I feel over­whelm­ing­ly grate­ful to Je­ho­vah, my fam­i­ly, and the friends and strangers who con­tin­ue to cheer me on. The great­est prize is know­ing that once again, my po­em's mes­sage res­onat­ed with the au­di­ence,” she said.

Part of get­ting the mes­sage through lies in Stew­art's abil­i­ty to change things up. Some­times the young po­et achieves this through main­ly con­tent and flow as in her pow­er­ful 2019 piece or through the struc­ture of her pre­sen­ta­tion like her in­ter­chang­ing be­tween the voice-con­trolled vir­tu­al as­sis­tant Alexa by Ama­zon and her own voice in her po­em on racism in 2020.

Stewart, third from left, shows off her $50,000 cheque from First Citizens Bank with third-place winner Derron Sandy, second-place winner Kevin

COURTESY CURTIS HENRY

This time around, Stew­ard de­liv­ered her win­ning piece “Anato­my of a Wolf” via the fairy­tale char­ac­ter Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood, high­light­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween how boys and girls are taught about gen­der-based vi­o­lence, and the in­creas­ing num­ber of miss­ing women in T&T while the per­pe­tra­tors hide in plain sight.

“Harm­ful be­hav­iour (among males) is dis­missed with 'boys will be boys', but boys soon be­come men. When they are ex­clud­ed from mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions about gen­der-based vi­o­lence, it is easy for cru­el think­ing and abu­sive habits to de­vel­op.

“My hope is that the po­em starts com­pas­sion­ate con­ver­sa­tions and that those that are lis­ten­ing pause long enough to con­sid­er their place in these is­sues,” she said.

For the semis, Stew­art pre­sent­ed “10 Sec­onds Be­fore” which she de­scribed as a hug and a squeeze for those grap­pling with thoughts of sui­cide. Through the piece, she urged any­one think­ing of harm­ing them­selves to hold on as life gets much bet­ter.

The lyrics of her spo­ken word dance from her lips, car­ried by a rhythm wrapped in the tri­als of grow­ing up with a sin­gle moth­er striv­ing to pro­vide for her chil­dren, the strug­gles of a young Afro-Trinida­di­an woman nav­i­gat­ing her way in life, and a con­scious­ness of the prob­lems that per­vade the so­ci­ety in which she lives. Her words are fire; her Afro 'do adding to her nat­u­ral­ness on stage.

At Slam, spo­ken word po­ets are al­lowed the barest ac­ces­sories to colour their per­for­mances. Their pre­sen­ta­tions fo­cused on a sin­gle “mic”, it is the vo­cal and phys­i­cal en­er­gy, charis­ma and de­liv­ery that bring home the pieces. Stew­art seems to strike a chord with her au­di­ence, in­clud­ing the judges.

A past stu­dent of St Joseph's Con­vent, St Joseph, Stew­art's school­ing ex­posed her to the arts, but her writ­ing came nat­u­ral­ly. While read­ing takes her to var­i­ous worlds and helps her meet many dif­fer­ent peo­ple, writ­ing al­lows her to “live a thou­sand lives,” she said. De­spite the heavy sub­ject mat­ter most times, she said she tries to in­cor­po­rate the good, show­ing her faith in a bet­ter fu­ture.

Jour­ney­ing back to her de­but in the Slam, Stew­art shared just how she got in­volved in the ex­pres­sive, rhyth­mic po­et­ic art form of the spo­ken word.

“I was 16 when my mum dis­cov­ered videos of spo­ken word po­et­ry on YouTube. I was en­rap­tured; the words were alive and puls­ing in a way I’d nev­er seen be­fore. My moth­er heard about the UWI Open Mic, UWE Speak and chal­lenged me to write some­thing and per­form. To that, I replied: why not?

“As a the­atre stu­dent, I was no stranger to the stage, but there was some­thing deeply per­son­al about shar­ing a po­em; a ter­ri­fy­ing naked­ness. With shak­ing knees and a hand­writ­ten po­em, I stood at the mic for the first time. My friends sat in the au­di­ence with bat­ed breath.

“Back then, peo­ple threw shoes at your feet if they liked your po­em. I was blown away by the large quan­ti­ty and va­ri­ety of shoes I re­ceived; boots, rub­ber ding dings, not-so-white sneak­ers and spark­ly san­dals. The ap­plause was thun­der­ous and the ex­pe­ri­ence left me ex­hil­a­rat­ed,” she said.

The 24-year-old worked with the 2 Cents Move­ment–the orig­i­nal group of artistes who found­ed the Vers­es Po­et­ry com­pe­ti­tion that evolved in­to the Slam–on school tours and work­shops, and still teach­es Eng­lish class­es. An MFA in Cre­ative Writ­ing can­di­date stu­dent who fo­cus­es on short sto­ries, at present, Stew­art has no qualms about try­ing her hand at arts such as paint­ing, mu­sic and jew­ellery-mak­ing.

“I en­joy the process with­out the pres­sure of a pur­pose. Every cre­ative should make room for l'art pour l'art; art for art’s sake,” she said.

And just what keeps her com­ing back to the Slam?

“I love the heart-pound­ing ex­cite­ment, the en­thu­si­as­tic lis­ten­ers and the chal­lenge–every year I seek to out­per­form my­self and ex­per­i­ment with new ideas. Shar­ing the stage with oth­er tal­ent­ed po­ets, new and old, is both a priv­i­lege and a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Stew­art al­so sees the val­ue of the com­pe­ti­tion as part of “the lo­cal spo­ken word po­et­ry ecosys­tem.” It iden­ti­fies is­sues in so­ci­ety and de­vel­ops the skills of the artistes them­selves, she felt.

“I am glad for the con­sis­tent sup­port and in­vest­ment by First Cit­i­zens, Bo­cas Lit Fest and the au­di­ence,” she said.

To up­com­ing spo­ken word artists, she ad­vised, “savour your gen­e­sis as every­one starts some­where, seek re­ward in your work rather than in sole­ly win­ning ti­tles, ex­er­cise the dis­ci­pline that comes along with be­ing an en­tre­pre­neur, and have fun while ex­tend­ing metaphors and serv­ing sim­i­les.

“What you plan to say has been said be­fore, but no­body has said it like you will,” she said.

Ever writ­ing, teach­ing and per­form­ing, Stew­art plans to con­duct free work­shops to show ap­pre­ci­a­tion to her sup­port­ers, and col­lab­o­rate with fel­low cre­atives. Al­so on her buck­et list are di­rect­ing spo­ken word films and hav­ing her own show.

Keep up or con­nect with the young artiste on In­sta­gram @talk­tothe­fro and at alexan­drac­stew­art.com