bio & works

// bio

Marlanda Dekine-Sapient Soul (she/her/they/them) is a poet and social worker living in Georgetown, South Carolina. Their work has been published and/or reviewed by Emergence Magazine, Screen Door Review, Penn State University Press, Minerva Rising, Castle of Our Skins, and Flycatcher Journal. They are the author and recording artist of i am from a punch & a kiss. Soul’s other poems and music can be heard on all digital streaming platforms, including Soundcloud & BandCamp.

Soul is the Founder & former Executive Director of Speaking Down Barriers. They have served communities as a child therapist, crisis therapist, community trainer and as a child abuse forensic evaluator. They are a 2008 graduate of Furman University (B.A. Psychology), 2011 graduate of University of South Carolina (Master’s in Social Work), and they began their Master’s in Fine Art (Poetry) with NYU’s Low-Residency Writers’ Workshop in Paris (2019). They are excited to continue their MFA studies with Converse College’s Low-Residency program. 

// i am from a punch & a kiss:

purchase the book
purchase the mixtape

// list of works

  • “Mama Got Us, We Good", Jah Freedom’s UMOJA Suite, 2020 [Music]
  • “How To Stay In Your Body When Someone Wants You Out Of It", “Granddaddy’s Tools", & “A Queer Meditation", Root Work Journal, August 2020 [Publication]
  • “Social Worker I" & “Social Worker II“, Screen Door Review, Summer 2020 [Publication]
  • “Silsilad Gabay", Our Space Leeds, a Homotopia commission, July 2020 [Collaborative Sound Exhibition]
  • “Acres of Ancestry", a poem for Acres of Ancestry & shared by Emergence Magazine, June 2020 [Publication]
  • “Black History is…", Waccamaw High School Jazz Band, February 2020 [Performance]
  •  “To listen”, Wick Poetry Center Call for Poems on Peace & Conflict Transformation, January 2020 [Finalist]
  • “The Moon”, Shuddhashar Magazine in Norway, December 2019 [Publication]
  • “Getting Lighter”, Spark & Echo Arts, November 2019 [Publication]
  • “what if?”, Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice for an Entangled World, Penn State University Press, November 2019 [Publication]
  • Fresh Voice of the Year Governor’s Award, SC Humanities, October 2019 [Recipient]
  • “Paris”, October 2019 [Music]
  •  “Mami Wata: An Evening of Transformation", Speaking Down Barriers, Spartanburg, SC, October 2019 [Organizer & Host]
  • “Healing through Writing”, Riverside Baptist Church, New York City, NY, August 2019 [Teaching Artist]
  • “Ubuntu”, HIV Prevention & Education Summit, Philadelphia FIGHT, Philadelphia, PA, July 2019 [Performance]
  • “Radical Leadership: Are You Letting Yourself Be Yourself?”, Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, May 2019 [Teaching Artist]
  • Keller Cushing Freeman Scholarship, Emrys Foundation, April 2019 [Recipient]
  • USC Upstate’s LGBTQ Oral History Project, Spartanburg, SC, March 2019 [Oral Historian]
  • “We Real Cool” on Gwendolyn Brooks & Mick Jenkin’s, “Gwendolyn’s Apprehension”, Tapp’s Center for the Arts, Columbia, SC, March 2019 [Teaching Artist]
  • “black history is…”, Voices in American Art sponsored by The Johnson Collection, February 2019 [Performance]
  • Writers Well Fellowship Retreat, 2016-2019 [Co-Founder & Teaching Artist]
  • Hub City Writers Project Bookshop & Press, 2013-2018 [Board Member]
  • “i am from a punch & a kiss”, 2017, 2018, [Author & Recording Artist]
  • Hub City Writers Project Bookshop & Press, Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition: Region I, 2017 [Judge]
  • The Watering Hole, 2015 [Teaching Artist]
  • Spartanburg Soaring! Poetry Day, 2015, 2014 [Organizer & Host]
  • Slam Madness Poetry Slam Tournament, 2011-2014 [Co-Founder]
  •  Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition: Region I, 2014 [Judge]
  • Spoken Word Spartanburg, 2013-2016 [Founder & Event Organizer]
  • Wits End Poetry, 2006-2014 [Performer & Volunteer]
  • Triune Mercy Center for the Homeless, 2007 [Teaching Artist & Volunteer]