Off the Shelf 2023 gets underway this Friday, and will be an unmissable experience for lovers of all things creative. See this previous article for more information about the festival and how to get involved.
Danaé Wellington is a Jamaican-British poet and cultural producer based in Sheffield. Her work focuses on freedom, resistance, faith, and black womanhood, which she will be making sure are at the forefront of this year’s edition of Off the Shelf, as the UK celebrates the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush. Watch this video to see Danaé read her poem ‘The Blue Jeans Ask Her.’
At last year’s Off the Shelf festival, Danaé was awarded the title of Sheffield Poet Laureate. In this role, she is heavily involved with Off the Shelf 2023, and will be showcasing two of her own events, as well as supporting fellow poet Salena Godden’s Pessimism is for Lightweights.
Danaé’s first event is an afternoon of free screenings of a short poetic film she has curated with Darshan Gajjar. Who We Were; Who We Became is an ode the Windrush generation and their memories, journeys and experiences. The film will also be projected onto the back of Sheffield Town Hall.
Danaé’s second event launches her new collaborative poetry anthology with Silé Sibanda and Warda Yassin, Spit Out The Myth. The event will also feature an introduction by Desiree Reynolds and a talk about the publishing process by Suzannah Evans.
I recently spoke with Danaé about her experience with Off the Shelf, and her career as a poet.
When did you first get involved with Off the Shelf festival?
I first got involved in 2021, with Desiree Reynolds. She had myself, Warda and Silé perform as a response to Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s work. But I got indirectly involved before that, with HIVE South Yorkshire, a brilliant young writers’ group. They usually run open-mic nights; I attended my first one in 2019, and that was a doorway into Off the Shelf.
Are there any events that you’re particularly looking forward to this year?
Yes, there’s quite a few! I’m really looking forward to Colin Grant’s’ I’m Black So You Don’t Have To Be, and Alex Wheatle is coming to talk about sound system culture. You should also go and see Akeem Balogun, award-winning author, if you get the chance to. I’ve got one about black portraiture (Peter Brathwaite) booked as well. And there’s a HIVE open-mic night, too. This isn’t quite in October, but there’s also Slambarz, which is a platform for young up-and-coming artists, and it’s part of Off the Shelf as well.
How long have you been based in Sheffield?
I’ve been in Sheffield for about 22 years now, from Jamaica. But I didn’t get into the poetry scene until 2018, and that was through HIVE.
What drew you to poetry more than other forms of expression?
I actually started off in music, when I was 16. I was performing with Riddimtion Sound System, doing a lot of reggae, neo soul and jazz music. It wasn’t until 2018, when I went through some pretty severe mental health issues, that I found myself going to a writing class. It was the first time I engaged with poetry, although I used to listen to spoken word and Def Jam open-mic nights from New York on YouTube. Then I went to an open-mic night, met Vicky (Morris) who runs HIVE South Yorkshire, and I’ve been doing poetry since then.
Did you find moving from music to poetry a big step, or were they similar?
I think they’re quite similar. I always wrote my own lyrics, drawing inspiration from the world and the people around me. I love Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, who come from a lineage of hip-hop and the art of storytelling, which is such a valued thing within black culture. I was always more for spoken word than page poetry, so I found the crossover quite easy. But going from performance onstage to actually learning the rules of poetry… well, I’m still learning!
Could you tell us a bit about your events company, Odd Child Productions?
Odd Child started out as Nyara School Of Arts, as a response to the fact that there weren’t many platforms, when I started out in music, for black artists like myself. We were surrounded by a lot of indie artists that loved the Arctic Monkeys, who were blowing up at the time. You can imagine somebody loving Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, wanting to do soul music, but on a bill full of indie music. I wanted to create a space where I could express myself in the way that comes naturally to me. Nyara was a place where black or ethnically minoritised families could go and enjoy cinema, seeing stories that they were familiar with.
And then that evolved: I closed Nyara down in 2022, and I set up Odd Child Productions. I wanted to tell my own stories through film. If we can’t see the stories that we feel represent us as people, then we have to find the resources to show what we want to be represented as. So it went from there, and I made my first documentary in 2021. Now, as part of Off the Shelf, we’ve got our poetry film coming out about the Windrush generation, their descendants, and their impact on the culture here in Sheffield.
For this poetry film (Who We Were; Who We Became), you’ve used a mixed media approach by combining poetry with film. What would you say was your inspiration for using the medium of film for poetic expression?
I’ve always admired Darshan’s work. I think he’s a brilliant filmmaker, with his style, and his visual aesthetic for telling stories. When it boils down to it, I think it’s about seeing ourselves off the page. It’s about sitting down in a cinema and watching ourselves.
A lot of your work, like your film with Darshan and also your poetry anthology with Warda and Silé (Spit Out The Myth), features collaboration with other artists. Do you prefer making collaborative pieces than working individually?
I like a mix of both, and I think that’s where your strengths are, if you can bring the two together. I’m autistic and I sometimes find collaboration a bit nerve-wracking, but I think it’s beautiful being able to bounce off other people and see how they envision something. So now I’m stepping into that collaborative space, which is really interesting to be in.
What opportunities has your time so far as Sheffield Poet Laureate granted you?
I’ve done quite a few really cool things. It’s the 75th anniversary of the NHS this year and we’ve got words being printed on the side of one of their buildings, which I think is awesome. Coming from where I come from, and being trouble in school, I would not have imagined that opportunities like that would have been open to someone like myself. I’m also working with a few schools at the moment, and it’s been great seeing the kids express themselves and be so enthusiastic about poetry and performance.
What achievement are you most proud of?
Being able to show other people that poetry can be accessible, especially to people that look like myself. A lot of the time, we come from the Global South as immigrants, who may speak second languages, and when English is not your first language, poetry can feel very Eurocentric. We have Shakespeare and Keats and all of these brilliant people. However, there are many stories to be told, and stories look and sound and feel like so many different things. We have a raw theatrical culture back in the Caribbean; we love to tell stories, we love to put things onstage. To help people envision themselves in spaces like this, or to want to come to poetry events because they hear their stories or they hear you speaking like them, I think that’s the dopest thing.
What advice would you give to budding young creators, just beginning to develop their own artistic voices?
- Don’t be afraid to speak in your mother tongue. You don’t have to write in English for whatever you have to say to be valid. Don’t start to censor or stifle yourself because you feel like you have to appeal to just English audiences.
- Read, read, read. And if, like me, you struggle to read, listen to podcasts, watch films, go outside, walk, meet people. Nick Makoha, from the Obsidian Foundation, said that poetry lives everywhere. If you immerse yourself in all these great works of art in the world around you, there’s a lot they can show you and tell you, and that can resonate with you, for you to write about.
- Whatever you have to say, it’s valid. A lot of the time we think that we’re not creative because we don’t do this or we don’t write like this. No – if you have a story, it’s really important to share that, and there’s nothing too insignificant. Believe in the power of your story, believe in the power of your song, go outside and invest yourself.
Do you think that Sheffield is a good place to draw inspiration from?
Yes. There’s a lot of beautiful things happening in the city, like in Pitsmoor, with the humdrum of all these different cultures navigating and weaving into each other, seeing the people laugh and play dominoes. There’s so much that you can write about. You can see inequalities, as well as how inequalities push people to work together. You can go down to Crookes Valley Park and see all the ducks! If you’re a nature fan, you can look at the cherry blossoms, and you have the Peak District on your doorstep. I feel like Sheffield, being the giant village that it is, has many spaces that we can go to, to draw inspiration from both difficult things and beautifully wonderful things.
Danaé can be found on Instagram @daughterofthefree or Twitter/X @Daughterof_Free.