Local poet and human rights advocate celebrates the spoken word at arts festival
The Crossing at St Paul's in Darwall Street held a New Year Arts Festival at the weekend, funded by the West Midlands Combined Authority in partnership with Walsall Council and RicNic Arts.
Local poet and human rights advocate, Saida Chowdhury, has gone from performing her first ever spoken word in front of an audience for Words of Wisdom at Café Royale in Wolverhampton last November, to performing at her first ever arts festival and holding her first poetry workshop in a matter of six weeks.
The New Years Arts Festival was hosted by RicniC in collaboration with Walsall Council, who empower young people through the creative arts.
"What an amazing event for the community at such a beautiful venue, (St Paul’s Church, Walsall), with creative activities and delicious food, all for free! My favourite was, the Victoria sponge cake!
"Performing alongside Ian Henery, Lee Benson, Laura Liptrot and Ryan Kenny. It has been a great experience meeting these incredible people who have given me invaluable advice and who have inspired me to further my career in the world of poetry and spoken word. The event also left me feeling so rewarded when I saw the sense of achievement and pride that the young people felt from writing their own pieces of poetry at my workshop, young people who initially claimed that they could not write poetry."
Her impact both professionally and personally has led her to be invited to be part of South Asian Women Poets Group with Kuli Kohli, Wolverhampton Poet Laureate, and other distinguished female Asian Poets, such as Priyanka Joshi and Santosh Dary, “Wow! What an honour to be invited by Kuli Kohli to be part of this inspirational group of ladies!”, Saida exclaimed.
Saida is excited to announce that The Heath Bookshop in Kings Heath will be holding a book launch for her debut book, ‘Broken Minds’, later this year, “so watch this space!”.
Her presence and work at the New Year Art Festival has created many exciting opportunities some which may involve further collaboration with RicNic themselves, “So thankful to Jennifer Holyhead for inviting myself and Ian Henery from The Ian Henery Show, Black Country Xtra Radio, and now wanting to work with us again in the future on a very exciting project indeed!”.
Other opportunities which have arisen are an invitation to perform at Robertos in Halesowen with Lee Benson from Black Country Radio, and also an invitation to be on Listen with Lee Show. She will also be performing at Katie Fitzgerald’s in Stourbridge next month with Laura Liprot, a published poet, author, playwright and actress.
“I am completely blown away, not only did I get to listen to these amazing poets perform, they have now invited me to their own events. Wow just wow!” Saida professed excitedly.
Her book launches across the region will be accompanied by a series of online films of Saida reading her work courtesy of Steve Hughes, of Hughes Media. “I am so grateful for all of Steve’s creative, explorative ideas and look forward to working with him”.
She began using poetry over 20 years ago after witnessing the injustices of the aftermath of 9/11 and trying to understand the root causes of the injustices that exist in the world. She hopes now that through poetry, she can help heal minds and bridge gaps in our society.
Saida's wish is that she can be a role model to other women from her cultural background and to remove the stigma behind mental health.
