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Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Shaquille Warren wins Poetry Slam

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12 days ago
20250507
Winner of the 2025 First Citizens National Poetry Slam, Shaquille Warren.

Winner of the 2025 First Citizens National Poetry Slam, Shaquille Warren.

Photo courtesy Curtis Henry

The last night of the 2025 Bo­cas Lit Fest be­longed to the peo­ple, at the Fi­nals of the First Cit­i­zens Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam. Voic­es “from the ground” rose to meet the high stage at NA­PA, and what fol­lowed was less a show and more a nec­es­sary reck­on­ing, as com­peti­tors in­ter­pret­ed the theme Bring It Home.

Shaquille War­ren, a first-time fi­nal­list hail­ing from Aranguez, walked in­to the ring—lit­er­al­ly and metaphor­i­cal­ly—wear­ing a half-red, half-yel­low box­ing robe. What he de­liv­ered was an un­ti­tled po­em shaped by the noise of an elec­tion sea­son and the fa­tigue of a coun­try still stuck in a cy­cle of fight­ing it­self.

He wasn’t meant to per­form that piece but as he ex­plained, “The at­mos­phere lead­ing up to the fi­nals... the di­vi­sion, the back-and-forth, it didn’t sit right. I had to change it. This one felt nec­es­sary.”

That in­stinct proved right. War­ren’s per­for­mance—raw, de­lib­er­ate, and heavy with sym­bol­ism—earned him the top spot and a $50,000 prize.

He be­came the first po­et in Slam his­to­ry to win from the #1 per­for­mance slot, and on­ly the fourth to win at their Slam de­but. He al­so joins the ranks of fel­low male win­ners as the sev­enth male cham­pi­on.

This year’s edi­tion of the First Cit­i­zens Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam, the most an­tic­i­pat­ed spo­ken word event in the re­gion, felt ur­gent. Fa­mil­iar faces re­turned. So did heavy truths. Six for­mer Slam cham­pi­ons were in the line-up. Two po­ets were mak­ing their Fi­nals de­but. Every per­former brought some­thing po­tent, but three rose to the top.

Tak­ing sec­ond place was Der­ron Sandy, the 2021 cham­pi­on and a stal­wart of the scene, now ap­pear­ing in his ninth fi­nal round. His piece, Prime Mon­ster, chart­ed the meta­mor­pho­sis of a well-mean­ing cit­i­zen in­to a cor­rupt­ed po­lit­i­cal fig­ure, con­sumed by the hunger for votes and pow­er.

He end­ed, hold­ing an imag­i­nary ba­by—a sym­bol of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions—be­fore throw­ing it sky­ward to the chill­ing echo of David Rud­der’s “Vote for we, and we will set you free.” Sandy, for the third time, placed sec­ond.

In third place was Ali­cia Psy­che Haynes, back for her sec­ond Fi­nals. Her po­em, Mr A, was more than a per­for­mance—it was a con­fes­sion, a cathar­sis, and a call.

“It’s for every woman who gave too much to a man who gave too lit­tle,” she said. It was Fri­day-night back­yard truth-telling en­er­gy, de­liv­ered with re­straint and clar­i­ty.

The judg­ing pan­el was made up of sharp eyes and ex­pe­ri­enced voic­es — po­et Arielle John as head judge, joined by Nick­o­lai Sal­cedo, Paul Keens-Dou­glas, Dr Sylvia Rose-Ann Walk­er, and guest judge Yo­mi Sode, a Niger­ian British po­et and play­wright whose pres­ence deep­ened the Slam’s in­ter­na­tion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Re­flect­ing on the night, Arielle John re­marked, “The po­ems on the ‘Bring It Home’ stage of­fered sev­er­al calls to ac­tion. They in­ter­ro­gat­ed how we gov­ern, how we par­tic­i­pate, and how we love. The Slam was a uni­ver­si­ty course on Trin­ba­go in the nav­i­ga­tions of now. The re­al ques­tion is—what will you, the wit­ness, do about it?”

This year al­so marked the re­turn of the First Cit­i­zens Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam to NA­PA, af­ter a six-year gap.

The en­er­gy in the room con­firmed what many al­ready knew—this is not just an­oth­er show. It’s a barom­e­ter of na­tion­al mood, and a space where the truth shows up un­fil­tered.

The night’s en­er­gy was guid­ed by dy­nam­ic co-hosts Ain­ka Williams and Thad­deus “Thad­dy Boom” Jar­dine, and a crowd that came ready to feel, not just to ap­plaud.

There was al­so space for re­flec­tion. Marielle Forbes, Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Youth Man­ag­er at the Bo­cas Lit Fest, de­liv­ered a stir­ring trib­ute to the late Pro­fes­sor Fun­so Aiye­ji­na, whose lega­cy is tight­ly wo­ven in­to the Slam’s foun­da­tion.

“What you wit­nessed tonight, and what you’ll con­tin­ue to see on fu­ture Slam stages, is part of the lega­cy Fun­so helped shape,” she said, call­ing it “an un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly Caribbean space where our young cre­atives can stand tall and re­mind the world that our sto­ries mat­ter.”

Ja­son Julien, Group Deputy CEO—Busi­ness Gen­er­a­tion at First Cit­i­zens, praised the cal­i­bre of this year’s event.

“Af­ter 14 years, our po­ets con­tin­ue to re­main rel­e­vant, fresh, and im­pact­ful,” he not­ed.

“The Slam is a plat­form for hon­est per­spec­tives de­liv­ered in mean­ing­ful ways. We con­grat­u­late our new and undis­put­ed cham­pi­on, Mr Shaquille War­ren.”

In his re­marks, Jean-Claude Cour­nand, CEO of the Bo­cas Lit Fest, made it clear that the Slam has nev­er been just about po­et­ry.

“It’s about lis­ten­ing. Rad­i­cal lis­ten­ing. From Chief Jus­tices to past pris­on­ers, from stu­dents to the every­day cit­i­zen — this space holds room for all of us to hear each oth­er,” he said.

“If some­one in your life is out of touch, bring them to the Slam.”

Four­teen years since it be­gan as a $1,000 open mic in a uni­ver­si­ty hall, the Slam has grown in­to a space where Trin­bag­o­ni­ans can un­pack the na­tion’s hard­est truths on stage, and still find beau­ty in the process.

And in 2025, the stage didn’t just hold the po­ets. It car­ried the coun­try.


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