Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa

Safiya's first spoken word encounter happened by chance in 2017 at a poetry slam called Milk Poetry in Bristol, hosted by Malaika Kegode. Safiya was dared to perform after a poet did not show up, she performed a freestyle and the host encouraged her to continue. Safiya was at first reluctant, but soon discovered poetry could bridge her passion for cultural studies and dance. In 2018, when studying poetic form, Safiya encountered challenges unique to her neurodiversity. To overcome her obstacles she began using dance to develop her own innovative frameworks to write, create choreography & unearth lost narratives. Safiya is now developing a new technique and her groundbreaking work is currently being used to write her first poetry collection (to be published by Out-Spoken Press, 2022). It will explore her Barbadian heritage through the voices of powerful women. She is currently in partnership with the Barbados Museum & Historical Society. 

​Her unique interdisciplinary style on the page and stage has led her to become a force to be reckoned with in the poetry community. Safiya won multiple national slam championships including the UK Hammer & Tongue National Slam Championships and the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Award. In 2020 she was awarded The New Voice in Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Page Poetry Prize and Creative Future Writer’s Award. She is an Obsidian Foundation fellow & Apples & Snakes/ Jerwood Arts Poetry in Performance recipient. Her notable commissions include writing for English Heritage, BBC Bitesize and The Wailers. 

In 2021 Safiya started a free poetry poetry programme in Barbados; the initiative offers professional lessons teaching a variety of techniques, form & poetry around the world and across time. 

Before poetry, Safiya's dance talent was discovered at the age of 14 at Swindon Dance Academy. In college Safiya won multiple competitions for public speaking as part of the Rotary Speakers' National Competitions. She was the only Black woman to make the finals in 2009. She then went on to study Cultural Studies (University of Leeds, BA) then Dance Cultures (University of Surrey, MA).