Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

Canadian-born Trinbagonian poet and self-taught artist Nneka Edwards says the variety of experiences she has had has influenced the diversity of her poetry. She has self-published at least 25 books of poetry for both adults and children, with more set to be published in the near future.

Originally published in the T&T Guardian July 17, 2016

Edwards described her poetry as a unique mixture of Caribbean colour and Oriental elegance. She grew up in Trinidad after her parents moved from Canada when she was three years old. She studied languages at St. Augustine Girls High School and went back to Canada to do her undergraduate degree in East Asian studies with a focus on China. Edwards has lived in Taiwan and Japan and currently teaches English to Chinese workers in T&T. “My background is diverse, my father was from Tobago, so I’m always careful not to leave Tobago out. My mother was from Trinidad, they met in Jamaica, I was born in Canada, grew up in Trinidad and studied for the most part abroad in the Far East and in Canada.”
She said one of her main goals is to make poetry popular again, as she thinks many poets have misrepresented it. “Poetry should be easy to understand or even if you don’t understand it, it should still speak to you on some level. But I think a lot of poets make the mistake of writing poetry that they think has to be extremely profound and I think people confuse profundity with complexity.”
Edwards said she wants to remind people that poetry is both lovely and practical, and would like readers worldwide to appreciate her work. “For T&T, I would like to use poetry to help us develop a way to store information that’s culturally significant, relevant, to create a legacy that we can pass on from one generation to the next, similar to what calypsonians have done.”
Her poetry covers a wide range of topics including local and Caribbean culture, multiculturalism, Biblical literature, the Far East, human psychology, the animal kingdom, music, food, romance and Black Pride.
Her book “Rhyme with Reason” matches animals with human personality types, which Edwards said was a combination of her understanding of human psychology and emotional intelligence and her ability to observe people. She also said she received help from the Holy Spirit to make the connections in some cases, as she would not have been able to do it on her own. This connection and her belief also led her to write some of her other books, including one which summarizes the Bible in 45 poems.
Edwards said she was inspired to write colour confidence, or Black Pride, poetry, because black people are very often marginalized. “Very often people outside of the group, and even those within the group, make us feel “less than”, using things that are really beautiful and saying that they’re ugly, so I just wanted to do something that would empower women of colour, along the lines of what India Arie does. I also wanted to do something that would be edifying and uplifting without being angry.”
Edwards has also written bilingual and multicultural books, as she is proficient in Spanish, French and Mandarin Chinese. One such is “Poetry Calender Trinbago,” which has 12 poems, each representing one month in the year, with each poem in English and Spanish. Another one, which she is getting ready to print, is called “I am Beautiful, A Multi-Cultural Mosaic.” “It features 20 girls and young women/dolls/paper collage illustrations from around the world and each doll represents a different culture, a different ethnic group, a different country and the beauty of each girl is described using motifs that are unique to her culture. It’s a really lovely book and it covers the five main continents.”
In addition to writing the books, Edwards also illustrates them, having taught herself illustration. She said she found that people liked her artwork as much as the books themselves. Edwards has also created a series of products to go with her books, including poetry-themed notepads containing her artwork, poetry CDs, greeting and Christmas cards and T-shirts, among other things. The books and products are available on Amazon and her website, http://www.nnekaedwards.com.
Edwards has three pieces of advice for upcoming poets: be careful to study your craft, develop your own style and write in a way the average person can understand. “A lot of people think that anything you write is poetry, but that’s not true, there are rules and principles that guide artistic expression. Sometimes I think people just put things down on paper and once they say it comes from the heart, they think it’s good poetry, but that’s not necessarily the case. I’d like people to love poetry as much as I do.”
For further information, email: joiedelens@gmail.com, find Nneka Edwards Author on Facebook and check out http://www.nnekaedwards.com.