Winning International Poetry Awards While Living in Jamaica
Inspiration from Antonia Valaire
How can you win international poetry awards from right where you’re at? First, you should probably be writing some poetry and sending it out to be shared. But what about the other stuff that goes into building a poetry career that wins awards?
Let’s ask someone who’s done it!
From being pronounced dead at birth and getting published without access to the internet to becoming an international award-winning poet, Atonia Valaire is living proof that there are no excuses to making your dreams come true.
She has won international awards such as the Sarabita Masters Poetry Award, Spoken Word Artist of the Year, International Poet of the Year, and much more.
So how does she do it?
Let your writing be bigger than yourself
Look, I can fill this section with my interpretation of Atonia’s thoughts, but she explains her experience so well. Let’s hear it from her:
“For a good while, I kept writing for myself. After a while, I got published in the newspaper. After that, there was a competition in my community, and I decided to enter. I was surprised myself. Most of the adults and their children were saying, "Woah, that touched me."
And that's when I fully grasped that there was something here because it's more than one person telling me. By the time I was 19, I got my first poem published in one of the oldest and biggest newspaper companies in Jamaica. It's very hard to get published in.
At this point, I've got about 32 poems published overall. That pushed me to say this is a mission I am on. It's been about me, my experiences, my emotions, my feelings. I eventually stepped away from it being about me to what is it that I am seeing in the world? I started to write on nature and politics.
My world was opened up now that I saw the world for what it was.
Over a period of time, I got to perform on a big stage at the Jamaica Poetry Festival. From there, something began. Something is brewing inside of me, and I need to go deeper to see the world and start to bring my message — to be more potent.”
Be a constant learner
You hear it all the time: continuous education, never stop learning, etc. But there’s a reason it’s said so often. Being a constant learner means you’re always improving your knowledge base, which makes you an even more impactful poet. Atonia’s the same way. She loves to learn and read.
“My area of study was Eastern Philosophy. I’m a curious mind. If I see a word that I do not know, I would go and sit and read about it.”
She even explains how being a constant learner can help in the social media age as you’re trying to maintain your online presence:
“There are so many things on social media that you are exposed to, and you don't want to offend people by using the wrong word in the wrong context. In Jamaica, we are very raw in our words, and certain words mean certain things for us. On social media, I say something and didn't mean it in a negative way.
And I realized that people were being labeled, and sometimes it's a lot of ignorance from that person. It should be a moment of teaching when someone realizes they have made a mistake. ‘Cancel Culture,’ to me, is not helping people. It's allowing people to remain in their ignorance.”
Build your network
You know what they say, ‘it’s all about who you know,’ right? I’m sure you can guess where this is going.
Building your network is something you hear often because it's effective. Introducing yourself to the right people can open doors you may not otherwise be privy to.
Antonia says:
“We talk about the pull of social media and the pull of people. … I was new to the internet and had just won a computer. I decided I was going to take my poetry seriously. I looked up poetry sites. I saw a poetry group and joined it. Then I saw this poem and decided to comment, and then he inboxed me.
I also met a gentleman who is the owner of this publishing company. I got published in a competition in his books. He was helping me see what’s going on.
Eventually, over a period of time he was almost like a mentor because he would say, ‘Send me your poems. Let me look at it.’ I would send them to him, he would read it and give me guidance.
He said to me, ‘You know, you’ve been writing so long, you need to publish a book.’ He recommended a publisher.
I entered poems into several of his anthologies, and we began talking. I didn’t actually pursue publishing my book in that sense, but he decided that he wanted to publish my book. … It was just a beautiful emotion and feelings. I was very honored.”
See? It’s about who you know. Allow yourself to grow your network by meeting new people and staying in touch with them. You never know who they know and when that connection will click at the right time.
Do your research and keep working
Nothing will fall into your lap if you’re not out there actively doing the work. So do your research for the competitions and awards you can submit to or be nominated for. And if you get rejections — or even ghosted — don’t fret. It happens to literally all of us. Even, Antonia agrees:
“Do a Google search for competitions. I put in some serious work in terms of searching for a lot of poetry competitions. Some of the times you don’t get shortlisted. They tell you that you’re not good enough. I get all of that. The rejection letters saying you’re not good enough; you’re not this; you’re not that. And you know, I’ve had my work stolen. I went through all of that.”
And look at her accomplishments! Even a multi-award winning poet still gets rejection letters. Everyone does, but you’ve got to keep pushing on. Keep honing your skills and getting your work out there.
Antonia says, “I believe that practice makes consistent. I continue to work on my craft and try to utilize everything I have. … When you have very little resources, it forces you to think outside the box.”
Keep working at it. Do your research. Build your network. Continue learning. And let your work be bigger than yourself.
We’ll leave you with this one final message from Antonia:
Passion meets purpose. So you have to be purposeful in what you’re doing.
Listen to or watch the full episode to hear even more of Antonia’s amazing story and inspiration for how you to can get to where she is.
Antonia Valaire believes you must bring your whole self to the table if you want to thrive in today’s crazy world: your personality, your sense of humor, and most importantly, your heart. All of these elements are what brought her to found her blog, Antonia Valaire’s Poetry Corner. Visit her website to discover all there is to know about Antonia Valaire!
