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.