SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Jonathan Cum­ber­batch ex­pert­ly blends a cor­po­rate ca­reer in hu­man re­source man­age­ment with a deep pas­sion for po­et­ry and art.

As the cur­rent Se­nior Hu­man Re­sources and Busi­ness Re­la­tions (HRBR) Man­ag­er at Nu­trien, he de­buted his first po­et­ry col­lec­tion–Pri­ma­ry Colours–orig­i­nal­ly com­piled from 20 years of work and pub­lished in 2021.

The book re­ceived im­me­di­ate ac­claim, not on­ly in print but al­so through its im­mer­sive au­dio and vi­su­al edi­tions. Its hy­brid pre­sen­ta­tion topped the Ama­zon Caribbean Po­et­ry Best-Sell­er list and earned a Com­mu­ni­ca­tor Award of Ex­cel­lence in 2022. But Cum­ber­batch didn’t stop there.

In ear­ly 2023, he re­leased Valen­tine’s Day in Trinidad and To­ba­go, with dis­tri­b­u­tion in­ter­na­tion­al­ly in 2024 via Belle Amande Pub­lish­ing. Earn­ing crit­i­cal ac­claim, the re­gion­al group Trop­i­cal Lit­er­a­ture Cre­atives list­ed it amongst its ten Best Books on Ro­mance, and in terms of com­mer­cial suc­cess, it topped the Ama­zon Caribbean Po­et­ry Best-Sell­er list. This body of work, which sur­rounds love and in­tro­spec­tion, earned Cum­ber­batch a pres­ti­gious ac­co­lade.

In May 2025, Trinida­di­an Cum­ber­batch was ho­n­oured with a Com­mu­ni­ca­tor Award of Dis­tinc­tion by the US-based Acad­e­my of In­ter­ac­tive and Vi­su­al Arts (AI­VA), recog­nis­ing the out­stand­ing qual­i­ty of the work and its com­ple­men­tary vi­su­al per­for­mance.

He was se­lect­ed from amongst 6,000 en­tries – an ac­co­lade which re­flects both artis­tic ex­cel­lence and nar­ra­tive im­pact. Both the book and trail­er were laud­ed for the ex­cel­lence of cre­ative ex­pres­sion, high­light­ing how ef­fec­tive­ly they com­mu­ni­cate themes around love and in­tro­spec­tion.

Au­di­ble de­scribes Cum­ber­batch’s jour­ney of per­son­al and com­mon ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­flec­tion as “… a per­son­al mus­ing on vari­able as­pects of love as ex­pe­ri­enced and ob­served …”

Cum­ber­batch said the AI­VA recog­ni­tion speaks to a tes­ti­mo­ny of ex­cel­lence. They are an in­vite-on­ly or­gan­i­sa­tion com­posed of top-tier pro­fes­sion­als in me­dia, ad­ver­tis­ing, mar­ket­ing, pub­lish­ing, and acad­e­mia. Their Com­mu­ni­ca­tor awards, a lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al awards pro­gramme, cel­e­brates ex­cel­lence and in­no­va­tion in com­mu­ni­ca­tions across di­verse me­dia plat­forms. The awards ho­n­our work across a wide ar­ray of cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing dig­i­tal, video, pod­casts, mar­ket­ing, mo­bile apps, so­cial me­dia, and print, and en­trants cov­er agen­cies, in-house teams, free­lancers, and stu­dents from around the world. It is one of the largest and most com­pet­i­tive awards of its kind, but it is not a com­pe­ti­tion, where mul­ti­ple win­ners may be named in a cat­e­go­ry if their work meets the high cri­te­ria. The Gold cat­e­go­ry recog­nis­es ex­cel­lence – the high­est ho­n­our – award­ed to en­trants whose abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate po­si­tions them as the best in the field, and Sil­ver is award­ed to projects that ex­ceed in­dus­try stan­dards in qual­i­ty and achieve­ment.

In part, Valen­tine’s Day im­pres­sive­ly res­onat­ed with judges be­cause of its po­et­ic depth, mul­ti­me­dia ex­cel­lence, cre­ative con­ti­nu­ity, and glob­al and lo­cal ap­peal, and the Au­di­ble blurb and Ama­zon re­views un­der­score con­sis­tent five-star rat­ings and au­di­ence ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

Next on Cum­ber­batch’s list is his third col­lec­tion, Pa­rade, for the re­lease sea­son this Oc­to­ber. Po­si­tioned as a fresh yet the­mat­i­cal­ly res­o­nant sum­ma­tion of life’s many episod­ic events and ad­ven­tures, Pa­rade is ex­pect­ed to build on the suc­cess­ful lin­eage start­ed by Cum­ber­batch’s ear­li­er works.

“Win­ning an AI­VA dis­tinc­tion en­hances my stature both with­in Caribbean lit­er­ary com­mu­ni­ties and in glob­al po­et­ry net­works,” Cum­ber­batch said. “Recog­ni­tion across both print and mul­ti­me­dia demon­strates my ver­sa­til­i­ty as a po­et and sto­ry­teller. This award, com­bined with dig­i­tal best-sell­er sta­tus, sig­ni­fies grow­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty for Caribbean lit­er­a­ture on the world stage and boosts ca­reer mo­men­tum. This recog­ni­tion marks a ca­reer mile­stone, val­i­dat­ing my blend of emo­tive verse and mul­ti­me­dia sto­ry­telling.”

Cum­ber­batch added, “It un­der­scores Caribbean lit­er­a­ture’s abil­i­ty to com­pete in glob­al cre­ative are­nas and high­lights the in­creas­ing ap­peal of po­et­ry in ac­ces­si­ble for­mats like trail­ers and au­dio­books. With a third col­lec­tion on the hori­zon, my path is one of con­tin­u­ing artis­tic evo­lu­tion. I stand not just as a sin­gu­lar Trinida­di­an lit­er­ary fig­ure, but as a ris­ing voice on the glob­al cul­tur­al stage. My win un­der­scores the mul­ti­di­men­sion­al sto­ry­telling I de­liv­er, not just in verse, but al­so in com­ple­men­tary vi­su­al/mo­bile for­mats.”

Valen­tine’s Day is avail­able at: Ama­zon, Kin­dle, and Au­di­ble, and lo­cal­ly: Pa­per Based Book­shop, Scrib­bles and Quills, and House of Cre­ative Peo­ple.