Shell Spin
Shell Spin is a poet, teaching artist, DJ, and multidisciplinary creative from Jersey. Her approach to art is a holistic one, fusing her knowledge and experience in different disciplines to “send out messages of hope and inspiration to the community as she lives her life freely and boldly in a world that too often attempts to silence Black women.” She has performed in several venues such as Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bowery Poets Cafe, Montclair State University, Rutgers University, Brooklyn Museum, Newark Museum, and the Meadowlands.
About her work in WOV II:
“I’ve Been Here Before” and “Divinity” are the two poems included in “A Womb of Violet: Volume II.” With lines such as “I’ve planted seeds in minds that colonizers cant find / The immortal spirits of Blackness” (from “I’ve Been Here Before”) and “I know that healing will happen for the Bantu knot wearing (...) Black kids / From the hood” (from “Divinity”), Shell Spin centers Blackness as a form of resistance. Both poems are examples of how her practice relates to her conception of art as an essential form of communication, and as a tool for Black and Brown people to flourish.