Fay­ola KJ Fras­er

Alexan­dra Stew­art is a ca­reer po­et, teach­ing artist, and MFA stu­dent, and the win­ner of the 2023 NGC Bo­cas Youth Writer Award. She made his­to­ry as a nine-time fi­nal­ist, the on­ly three-time cham­pi­on in the First Cit­i­zens Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam (2022, 2020, and 2019), and the on­ly per­son to win in con­sec­u­tive years. She is one of the most award­ed spo­ken word po­ets in the Caribbean, at just 26 years old, and she works re­lent­less­ly to im­prove her craft.

Fo­cused on reach­ing hearts, her po­ems com­ment on so­cial is­sues in cre­ative and thought-pro­vok­ing ways. Per­form­ing both lo­cal­ly in T&T and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, Stew­art’s work has chan­nelled glob­al ap­peal. Her com­po­si­tion for the NGC Bo­cas Youth Writer Award, Dear Daugh­ter, was de­scribed by judges as “evoca­tive and pow­er­ful, which push­es past ‘page and stage’, liv­ing on­line and rent-free in the minds of any­one lucky enough to hear or read it.” 

As the au­thor of a broad spec­trum of thought-pro­vok­ing com­po­si­tions that res­onate with the lis­ten­ing pub­lic, she seeks to im­part so­cial im­pact through every word, sen­tence, and piece. She choos­es to be se­lec­tive in her man­ner of ad­dress­ing sen­si­tive top­ics and al­ways elects to be “quick to lis­ten and slow to speak,” al­low­ing the po­ems to “sim­mer qui­et­ly” in her mind. As a writer, she us­es her out­let, and in­deed her job, to process the world around her, aim­ing to strike a bal­ance be­tween the se­ri­ous and en­ter­tain­ing.

She al­so us­es her craft as a ve­hi­cle and as “a way for peo­ple to hear them­selves more clear­ly.” Stew­art has achieved a great num­ber of ac­co­lades. Cur­rent­ly en­gaged in a pro­gramme of ter­tiary study at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, she is set to grad­u­ate with an MFA in Cre­ative Writ­ing in 2024. She was longlist­ed for the ac­claimed Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize and has per­formed in Toron­to as well as taught a work­shop in Kansas City. Ac­cord­ing to Stew­art, “the fu­ture looks in­ter­na­tion­al,” and she is fo­cused on har­ness­ing the “in­her­i­tance of sto­ry­telling” in­dige­nous to T&T and broad­cast­ing it on the world stage.

Her love for mu­sic is al­so in­ter­wo­ven in­to her plans, as she hopes to com­bine po­et­ry with mu­sic, set her com­po­si­tions to mu­sic, and pro­duce her spo­ken word films. Sur­round­ed by a strong com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who be­lieve in her in a field that can be con­sid­ered non-tra­di­tion­al, Stew­art cred­its her moth­er’s sup­port as the bedrock of her ca­reer. “My life would be so dif­fer­ent if my moth­er hadn’t en­cour­aged me, 16 years old at the time, to take the mic and per­form at UWI Speak.” The grat­i­tude that she has for such a strong sup­port sys­tem has trans­lat­ed in­to her sup­port for younger, up­com­ing artistes in the same field.

Her idea that “the fu­ture looks back” en­cap­su­lates her com­mit­ment to be gen­er­ous with her time and tal­ent to oth­ers. In­deed, she rem­i­nisces about the artists, writ­ers, and men­tors who have en­cour­aged her along her jour­ney and us­es teach­ing as her way to give back the same pearls of wis­dom she has re­ceived. Stew­art has, sim­i­lar to most artistes, ex­pe­ri­enced the scep­ti­cism sur­round­ing the cre­ative field and has weath­ered the chal­lenge of peo­ple try­ing to un­der­val­ue her work. In her ex­pe­ri­ence, “spo­ken word po­et­ry per­for­mances are like bloom­ing poui trees.”

This, in her opin­ion, is metaphor­ic for the way that we are blessed to ex­pe­ri­ence the rich­ness of the poui trees for a short pe­ri­od every year, but sim­i­lar to her, “the trees are work­ing hard all year round; ef­forts are un­seen and un­no­ticed.” Al­though peo­ple may be­lieve her craft amounts to “just” a four-minute per­for­mance, the lev­el of ef­fort, num­ber of years, and ded­i­ca­tion to build­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and prac­tic­ing her craft are count­less. Alexan­dra Stew­art con­tin­ues to re­frame and push the bound­aries of the art of spo­ken word in the coun­try and the re­gion.

Wield­ing our gift of sto­ry­telling, buried deep in our Trinida­di­an roots and giv­en to us by our an­ces­tors, she has shaped her gifts in­to a flour­ish­ing ca­reer of per­for­mance, teach­ing, and writ­ing. Merg­ing en­ter­tain­ment and so­cial com­men­tary, she has over­come scep­tics and chan­nelled her abil­i­ties to touch hearts by hold­ing up a mir­ror to the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

Con­nect with Stew­art on In­sta­gram to see her up­com­ing ven­tures @talk­tothe­fro