There is no travel needed for our virtual conference in 2022, so we have awarded three smaller Bridget Jones awards, to enable participation and presentation.
Cyndi Celeste Marshall is a University of the West Indies (Cave Hill) graduate in Linguistics and Communication Studies, currently pursuing a Masters degree in Creative Arts. She is a National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA) award-winning poet whose work has been published in The Caribbean Writer and the Arts Etc/NIFCA Winning Words Anthology.
As a performer, she has graced both national and international stages and has represented Barbados at South Africa’s Vrystaat Arts Festival and the Women of the World Poetry Slam, held in the US. She is also the second-place awardee of the inaugural Black British Writers International Poetry Competition. At home, her most notable performances to date include her poetic narration at the ceremony for the decommissioning of Lord Horatio Nelson’s Statue from its plinth in National Heroes’ Square (2020), and her speech performance entitled “We Ain’ Done” at the Pride of Nationhood celebration commemorating Barbados’ transition to republican status (2021). She has also released a body of her work, ‘Cyndicated’, which is available for purchase or streaming online.
Offstage, Cyndi has been involved in several community arts projects geared towards promoting critical literacy and social engagement in youth and building a sustainable poetry community in Barbados. She has co-ordinated youth open mic events and community writing workshops and facilitated afterschool arts advocacy programmes surrounding gender-based violence.
Her research explores through the niche spoken word poetry genre the implications of identity-building and forging creative economies in the post-colonial Caribbean space.
Online Links
‘Cyndicated’: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/cyndiceleste/cyndicated
“We Ain’ Done”: https://youtu.be/rHKKHKkPQeo