SE Valley Times

The awards and opportunities continue to grow for Safiya Sinclair, an associate professor at Arizona State University’s Department of English. In mid-April, Sinclair was awarded one of 188 Guggenheim Fellowships, which are granted to cultural creators based on their career achievements and "exceptional promise." The fellowship includes a stipend for her new poetry project, a book titled "Planet Dread."

Additionally, Sinclair's memoir, "How to Say Babylon," won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. The New York Times describes these awards as "among the most prestigious literary prizes in the United States" because recipients are chosen by book critics rather than committees made up of authors and academics.

Sinclair's memoir recounts her childhood in Jamaica under her father's authoritarian Rastafarian beliefs. ASU News interviewed Sinclair about the book award and the Guggenheim Fellowship.

"It really felt like a big honor because the book critics are the best at what they do, and they read perhaps the most books annually," said Sinclair regarding the Book Critics Circle Award. "For them to highlight my book, it really did feel very special."

Discussing "Planet Dread," Sinclair stated: “I’m going to be examining a couple of things. Primarily the book is going to be examining the way the Rastafari think... I’m thinking about vernacular. I’m thinking about dialect.” She highlighted how Rasta language seeks to challenge English norms with examples such as saying “overstand” instead of “understand.”

In exploring this linguistic rebellion through Rasta poetics and womanhood, she hopes to bring forth her own femininity within this male-centered language.

Reflecting on her writing process, Sinclair noted: “There is no sort of dictionary you can go to double-check that you’re spelling this right or using this correctly... My interest in what I could do with this language that’s born out of this very much anti-colonial sense and sensibility is really when I first felt like the fever of, ‘Can I do this through poems?’”

Sinclair also commented on gender perspectives in Rasta vernacular: “In many ways, I’m seeing this poetry book as a bridge to that last chapter where I said, ‘I’m going to say ‘I woman.’”

On linguistic rebellion's roots: “You’re kind of throwing off anything born out of colonialism and imperialism... Our dialects were born out of the sense of rebellion where the enslaved created this language over centuries because it was ours.”

"Planet Dread" will also address climate change: “Islands like Jamaica have the smallest carbon footprints in the world... As somebody who was born at seaside, I’m already seeing effects. Our beaches are eroding.”

Sinclair anticipates completing a full manuscript within a year and hopes for publication within two years.