Featured poet
Mahlikah
CFSW Poet of Honour Distinction recipient (2019) and recent TED Talk Speaker Mahlikah is an artist for social change based in Toronto, Michi Saagig Nishnawbe (Mississauga) territory (Treaty 13). She is a recognized spoken word artist, activist, arts educator, artist mentor, musician, performance artist, futurist writer, digital artist, and mindfulness coach.
Mahlikah is a Paula Fund awardee and a contributing writer and digital artist for the first Black Canadian Afro-Futurism anthology, Cosmic Underground Northside: An Incantation of Black Speculative Discourse and Innerstandings (Cedar Grove Publishing). She is currently:
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the Director of Programming for Neighbourhood Impact at the Centre of Learning and Development
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an Art Educator for The Art Gallery of Ontario
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a TDSBCreates Artist Mentor
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a Faculty Member for BLM Canada's Wildseed Centre’s Black Arts Fellowship
Recent artistic projects include:
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CBC Arts Poetic License Featured Poet
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Audible Canada’s Power in Poetry: Moods That Move Recording Artist
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Defining Brave Short Film Featured Performer
TED Talk Speaker at TEDxDelthorne Women in Los Angeles California
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Featured poem
She Who Brings The Dawn
Virility of spirit is language of the soul
As above
So below
Banish burdens to the incandescence of starlings
To be transmuted
Bind sanctified proclamation of the land and all creation
Ordaining my existence undisputed
Elevating celestial wisdom as reputed
Balance inner-worlds of umbrage and lustre
Veils enshrouding mystical terrains
Whisper incantations
Again and Again
Stirring the embers of stardust
Flowing through my veins
This is what standing on the periphery
Of melodious myth & mystery tastes like
Insatiable mouth-watering prophecy
Oozing with scrumptious morsels of miracles
And ancient odyssey’s
The Far Seer Woman told me once
The Universe is in the palm of my hands
Inscribed in my fingertips
Anointed by the lunation of the Moon
Orbital Eclipse
Symmetrical
Empirical to the engravings
Papyrus Scrolls
Hieroglyphs
DaVinci Codes
Unfurling leviathan gateways
An armoury of incubated intentions
Sung to the waters, tree, and winds
Nourishing these paranormal interconnections
Still, I pursue this unknowing
Ravenous
Relentless
A Padawan of Pleiades raised by wolves
With a flock of eagles bounding in my chest
After I nest procuring subliminal rest
Flourishing reinvention
I tend to my altar
Replenish my cauldron
Surrender to the infinite
My intuition deliberate
As I align my introspection
With an incarnation so intricate
Excavating that which no longer serves me
Encompassing the totality of what is meant for me
Cultivating a massive shape-shift betwixt
The Healer
The Warrior
The Witch
Awaken
Beseech
Sustenance and cessation
Arousing fantastical imaginations
They have been formulating
My unfolding
Uncloaking my magnificence
Exalting my effervescence
Ancestral magic
Exiled
Tortured
Massacred
Entombed
Quelled
Languishing in hollowed dark matter
Beyond the Super Eons it took Jupiter to Conjunct Saturn
I ascended resplendent
Emboldened
I am now a wandering Super Nova
Dazzling spellbound vista
Scintillating
Enticing Enchantress
Immortal instrument
Forged from Hoo Doo ceremonious
Rites & rituals
Matrilineal legacy
Lineage medicinal
Daughter of Venus the Morning Star
She Who Brings The Dawn
She Who Brings The Dawn
"She Who Brings The Dawn." Copyright © 2021 by Mahlikah.
