IRA MATH­UR

Si­mone Leid is a Trinida­di­an po­et and gen­der ad­vo­cate whose writ­ing re­flects a deep en­gage­ment with gen­der and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment work across the Caribbean. Her po­ems come from the women she meets and the con­di­tions she en­coun­ters in her work.

Leid found­ed the Wom­en­Speak Project, for which she re­ceived the BlogHer In­ter­na­tion­al Ac­tivist Schol­ar­ship in 2011 and was in­vit­ed to speak in San Diego, bring­ing women to­geth­er to write, per­form, and ar­tic­u­late their ex­pe­ri­ences around gen­der-based vi­o­lence, mi­grant rights, and the en­vi­ron­ment. She is a con­sul­tant in gen­der and de­vel­op­ment and holds an MFA in Cre­ative Writ­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

Leid’s work clear­ly runs par­al­lel to her writ­ing: “Through a se­ries of work­shops in writ­ing and oth­er artis­tic dis­ci­plines, women come to­geth­er to dis­cuss is­sues such as gen­der-based vi­o­lence, mi­grant rights and gen­der and the en­vi­ron­ment. They then use the skills of cre­ative writ­ing, spo­ken word and song­writ­ing to cre­ate their own works that con­verse with these is­sues.”

The man­u­script Leid is cur­rent­ly query­ing, “Moth­er Tongue”, fol­lows the emo­tion­al arc she de­scribes in her craft. It be­gins with an at­tempt to re­con­struct the mi­gra­tion of her grand­moth­er, Vi­ta Pol­lard, from St Vin­cent to Trinidad in the ear­ly 1940s, and widens in­to an ac­count of how “coloni­sa­tion, racism, ex­trac­tion and aban­don­ment have im­pact­ed the lives of work­ing-class women.” Her po­ems move across time with­out sep­a­rat­ing past from present, from “the ear­li­est days of geno­cide and en­slave­ment” to “present day en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and cap­i­tal­ism in the Caribbean.” The po­ems al­so show how “even while the women in these po­ems nav­i­gate these hard­ships, they are al­so cel­e­brat­ed for their re­silience, po­lit­i­cal acu­ity and lead­er­ship.”

Leid de­scribes writ­ing, like many po­ets, as a way to find her­self. “Any cre­ative prac­tice, first and fore­most, is for the self. The idea of mak­ing some­thing with your own hands is in­trin­si­cal­ly sat­is­fy­ing… For po­ets, we use words as our ma­te­r­i­al, and the tools of our prac­tice (im­age, metaphor, de­tail and struc­ture), to bring our cre­ations to life.” But the process does not re­main con­tained. Writ­ing “helps re­veal the self.” It be­comes “a kind of alche­my, a sum­mon­ing that calls up voic­es and feel­ings that opens the writer to new ways of see­ing.” Writ­ing is not fixed. “Writ­ing is a dis­cov­ery, even for the writer. You may set out to write about one thing and then find the po­em takes you to a place you had not fore­seen.”

The re­sult, Leid ex­plains, has helped her to “in­ter­ro­gate my be­liefs and val­ues,” forc­ing her “to ex­am­ine things from dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives,” and “cre­at­ing nar­ra­tives that draw from the ex­pe­ri­ences of oth­ers, but ob­served through my own val­ue-lens.”

Leid has honed her craft in var­i­ous Caribbean lit­er­ary spaces, in­clud­ing the Crop­per Foun­da­tion Res­i­den­tial Work­shop, the Callaloo Cre­ative Writ­ing Work­shop, and the Moko Writ­ers’ Work­shop. In 2010, Leid was short­list­ed for the Small Axe Prize in Po­et­ry.

The fol­low­ing is an ex­cerpt of po­ems from a col­lec­tion by Si­mone Leid Po­ems.

Moth­er Earth Gets Shot on the Beetham

For Or­nel­la Greaves

All we who live close to the de­cay—

The ran­cid car­cass and every bloat­ed

Ex­cess of the white man; the black

Burn­ing that nev­er go out—we know

If we don’t make a lil’ ra­ma­jay

Bun some tire and skin we gum

Princess Mar­garet and Un­cle Tom go just turn

The page to the next sto­ry.

They make spec­ta­cle of our suf­fer­ing

And call it ri­ot. When we boy-chil­dren get shoot

In the road like dog, no mat­ter what bring them to it

The moth­er in we does bawl out.

I went to make sure I was wit­ness

I went to show them that a poor woman

Like me, can stand eye to eye with those

Who per­pe­trate to jam they boot in we neck

But as I pull out the phone to record

My nat­ur­al eye weak­en—it tap my Spir­it

And the bul­let find me like a mag­net

But as I fall down, the child in my bel­ly

Make me to see. It was the po­lice who shoot me.

...

What Did She Do?

A woman is dead.

Still in her car head slumped to one side

The car she bought af­ter three years

Of sav­ing every dol­lar from her side job

Braid­ing hair on the week­end.

She start­ed braid­ing hair af­ter friends

Com­ment­ed how she al­ways looks so good

And how well her man must be do­ing

To keep her in hair ex­ten­sions and new nails

And she laughed be­cause that’s what women do

When they feel un­com­fort­able or threat­ened;

A skill learned from hav­ing been fol­lowed

And taunt­ed for not re­spond­ing to a soot

And on Sat­ur­days, she made corn soup

Just the way her grand­moth­er likes it - with plen­ty dumplings

Cause she didn’t al­ways have time to cook dur­ing the week

And felt guilty for hav­ing to fill her chil­dren’s bel­lies with KFC

And she and her girl­friends planned

To go To­ba­go over the East­er Hol­i­day cause

It’s Hot Girl Week­end and they are still young

And want to take self­ies on the beach to post to IG

And all her posts on IG are of her pos­ing

Pouty lips and hand hearts and glit­tery

Fil­ters show­ing her ba­by girl play­ing in the front gar­den

Next to the new elec­tron­ic se­cu­ri­ty gate

The one she in­stalled af­ter the po­lice told her there was noth­ing

They could do un­less she first filed a re­strain­ing

or­der. And on her way home from work she stopped by Pen­ny­wise

To pick up a few packs of hair for a client com­ing to­mor­row

And then she pulled up in front of her dri­ve­way.

...

Moth­er on the Hill

Miss Pearl, my hus­band horn­ing me

again. I say the prayers you give me

I try not to fuss with him like you say

but noth­ing work­ing. Talk to him for me.

He will lis­ten to you.

Miss Pearl, my moth­er lose her job and as

the man of the house I have to try an hus­tle a lil mon­ey

to help wid my broth­ers and sis­ters an ting. I ain’t do­ing

noth­ing wrong Miss Pearl. I promise. I just do­ing a lil

job for Jer­ry. Don’t wor­ry.

Miss Pearl, that lil mad girl run away from the Home

you know. Yes, they don’t just let them out so. I hope

them dut­ty men don’t take ad­van­tage of her. I know you

have your grand­chil­dren or you woul­da take her in.

Wha bout me? I have to pray on that one Miss Pearl.

Miss Pearl, you ain’t see how they mash­ing up the

com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter? Af­ter you get the MP to put

up bas­ket­ball court and ta­ble and chairs for the

home­work cen­ter. Burgess ain’t no good man­ag­er.

Is best they give you back to hold the keys.

Miss Pearl, my daugh­ter get all her sub­jects

praise God. Cheryl, thank Miss Pearl for get­ting

your school­books do­nat­ed. Yes, she look­ing for

a lit­tle job now. She need two rec­om­men­da­tion

Cheryl, tell Miss Pearl sor­ry for rid­ing the bike

over her flower bed. These bad-ass chil­dren, eh.

End of ex­cerpt

Leid’s po­ems have ap­peared in Callaloo and Sx Sa­lon, and more re­cent­ly in Writ­ing for Our Lives: A Caribbean Cli­mate Jus­tice An­thol­o­gy (Peekash Press, 2025).

Ira Math­ur is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, a Guardian colum­nist, and the win­ner of the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion.