One of the youngest published poets in Barbados, La Shawna Griffith has launched her second book of poems, La Shawna – Release The Energy Within last month.
Last month, La Shawna Griffith had two significant milestones to celebrate, her graduation from the University of the West Indies and the launch of her new book, “La Shawna – Release the Energy Within”
The Political Science graduate spoke recently with The Barbados Advocate about her new work which was launched October 21, 2017. She explained that this second book does not have graphic content but instead focuses on social issues like mental health and abuse. She said it is a collection of thirty poems, semi-fictional in nature.
“The pieces (poems), some of them have a personal connection to me. However, I used another person’s name. The book speaks about spirituality, it also speaks about domestic violence as that was a common theme that I ran from the first book into this one. However, this one looks at how you can overcome domestic violence and also speaks about mental health. It looks at bi-polar disorder as well as dementia,” said Griffith.
As to the reason for the themes used in her book, Griffith said as an author she believed that she has a voice. Also she noted that in Barbados people do not talk a lot about mental health as it is one of the taboo topics. During her research on the topic and while attending poetry limes, the young poet discovered that it was one of the topics that she wanted to highlight. Griffith revealed that on the issue of dementia, it came from speaking to a relative with the condition. In her book, she had created a character Lucinda who has Alzheimer’s disease and the character speaks about her condition from her daughter’s perspective.
Another interesting aspect of her book, is the topic of domestic violence. There is a poem entitled, ‘His Condemnation, Her Armour”. Griffith painted a complex narrative of the victim finding solace through spirituality. In this part of the book, the poet also pays tribute to Ameerah Cooper, an American best-selling author who experienced domestic abuse and overcame it. The fellow author gave the young poet her blessing after Griffith reached out to her.
“She is actually printing copies to stick on her wall because it is a Barbadian author. She wants to come to Barbados,” said Griffith.
The book is currently online at Amazon.com in Kindle form and paperback and the author expressed her intentions of bringing in the books to Barbados soon.