Poet Laureate of Toronto Lillian Allen in Conversation at The Writers Centre, Trinidad
The Writers Centre, home of the Bocas Lit Fest, Paper Based Bookshop, and Sleepy Cat Cafe, is delighted to welcome Jamaican-Canadian poet Lillian Allen, current Poet Laureate of Toronto, for an evening of poetry, performance, and conversation on Saturday 21 February 2026 at 5.30 pm. The event is FREE and open to all, presented in partnership with the High Commission of Canada in Trinidad and Tobago.
The programme will feature readings drawn from Allen’s decades-long body of work, followed by a conversation led by Shivanee Ramlochan, Festival and Programme Manager of the Bocas Lit Fest. Spanning themes of dub poetry, poetry as activism, cultural memory, and Allen’s role as Poet Laureate, the discussion will centre on the power of writing in an unstable geopolitical world. A book signing follows the event, with copies of Make the World New (Wilfred Laurier University Press) and MutterTongue (Exile Editions) available from Paper Based Bookshop.
A foundational figure in the dub poetry movement, Lillian Allen is internationally recognised as one of Canada’s leading creative Black feminist voices. As her publisher Wilfred Laurier University Press notes, her work has been instrumental in shaping dub poetry across the Black diaspora since the 1980s, offering “exciting sounds of protest and a careful, detailed documenting of everyday life as political praxis.”
Reflecting on her tenure as Toronto’s Poet Laureate, Allen notes: “It’s been fantastic helping to elevate and share in poetry at the community and public levels… Toronto is truly a great ‘poetry city’… I’m especially so moved to see this movement of young people coming to voice and asserting their right to be counted.”
Allen’s connection to performance began early in Jamaica: “Oh, I was hooked from fairly young from performing in church and at school… People responded with such love and appreciation… It was spiritual.”
Speaking on the significance of presenting her work in Trinidad and Tobago, Allen shares: “I so love that I’ll have this opportunity to be in the company of writers and those who love writing and poetry and toil to support it. We are family that way — how we ensure the survival of our cultures through the most accessible voice, writing. Writing and presence are always a democratizing process.” She adds, “T&T is like a mythical place to me — the vernacular is so sweet. Cha! Poetry springs from anticolonial and decolonizing impulses and asserts futures of complete self-determination, justice, love, peace, pleasure, joy, and transformation.” Allen also reflects on the influence of Trinidadian dub poetry pioneers: “I was a big fan and colleague of both Brother Resistance and Cheryl Byron… their work transported you to a whole new dimension.”
A two-time Canadian Juno Award winner, educator, cultural strategist, and arts activist, Dr Allen’s visit promises a powerful evening celebrating poetry as resistance, community, and visionary possibility.
