CULTURE
Journey in words Jamaican-born poet and speaker Nadine Williams’ work is inspired by her immigration path By Takara Small
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adine Williams was always comfortable being the centre of everyone’s attention, but she never thought she would be doing it on a professional basis. That is, until she began writing poetry based on her immigrant experiences in Canada. The Jamaican-born immigrant, whose self-published pieces of work include “With This Pen I Do Tell,” “The Culmination of Marriage Between Me & My Pen,” “Pen on Fiyah” and Love Rocks, a children’s book, has drawn hundreds of people to her poetry readings, workshops and keynote speaking events. Her public speaking career had its beginnings in an unlikely place: the living room of her rural home in St. Parish, Jamaica. It was there, surrounded by family, that she would recite stories and poetry from a range of works using a well-used kerosene lamp to help her see the pages. “What inspired me; what started this, was reading as a child,” she says. “There was no electricity in my house and you had to find something to do and reading out loud for my grandparents was one way to pass the time.” Despite her humble beginnings, she always saw herself as one of the “spoiled, lucky ones” during her early years, she confesses. With a mother in Canada who would regularly send money back home to support her and extended family members, she and her brother grew up with more privileges that many of her peers. They had nicer clothes and better meals, but it obviously came with a price: she rarely saw her mother and spent most of her younger, formative years (from the age of five to 15) raised by her grandparents. Her mother worked long hours in Canada and scrimped Celebrating 10 Years!
and saved what she could, which between me and everyone else. most importantly opened her meant she could rarely afford to I wasn’t from here and couldn’t eyes to the importance of female return to Jamaica to watch her fit in with my strong Jamaican newcomers sharing their stories children grow up. accent.” with the community. “From my “We wore the best clothes and An early marriage she entered experience, I’ve been able to visit were spoiled in our humble up- into “too quickly” at the age of a lot of women shelters and bebringing because she sent money 20 was a way to cope with being gin sharing my stories with other back all the time, but it had its a constant “outsider” in her new women,” she says. drawbacks,” Williams says. adopted land, she shares. “I found that there are a lot of Her world, as she knew it, re“If I grew up in Canadian people who have had the same volved around her life in Jamaica society it would’ve been differ- experiences I did. I was pretty and she barely knew her mother, ent,” she says. “You’re educated much beaten down to the earth with whom she reunited at 15 and aware of how things are physically and mentally, but supposed to go socially. I don’t poetry helps me to love myself. years old in Toronto. “It’s not uncommon for im- think I would have made that Others should share their stories migrant families to do this,” she [marriage] decision so early. I and feel that way, too.” says. “They come to a country felt like it ruined my life For Williams, every new exearly to pave the way, but it in a way. I was so perience helps her tell new meant I had no recollection of young, so imstories through her po[my mother] when I moved to mature, so etry. It’s a skill that she hopes to share not ready Canada.” with more CanaanyThe author has often leaned for dians. “I really on her experiences of feeling thing like alone and uncertain as a young marriage.” hope to continue immigrant in Canada to fuel her The lifewriting and take community work and passion changing my work further for poetry today. Turning those event and than Toronto, experiences into something later sepBrampton and positive creatively has netted aration York Region. Maybe taking it Williams several awards for liter- provided nationally and creary work, including the York Re- further gional Police’ Deeds Speak award inspiraating more awareness this past February. Her success tion for in Canada … just really with poetry also led to opportu- her work, continuing my work,” nities to read her work on CBC and she says. TV, Rogers TV, at schools and post-secondary institutions in Ontario, as well as at Queen’s Park during Black History Month. She’s definitely come a long time since her selfdescribed “awkward teen years” in Canada, during which she was faced with navigating Canadian culture while sharing a onebedroom apartment in Toronto with her mother and sibling. “I tried to fit in, but I had some issues, you know normal teenage things, but it was compounded because there Jamaican-born Nadine Williams uses poetry to tell her Canadian immigration story. was such a difference August 2014
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