// mission
Marlanda Dekine-Sapient Soul (she/they) is a family recordkeeper,
born in Greenville, South Carolina, raised
in Nashville, Tennessee, & Plantersville, South Carolina.
She has spent most of her life living
along the Gullah-Geechee corridor in Plantersville on Heir’s Property
with her amazing family, including her beloved parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, & cousins,
cousins, cousins, cousins, & cousin dem
on the land of the Chicora & Woccon peoples.
She
is the author & recording artist of i am from a punch & a kiss.
She
is the founder of Speaking Down Barriers & Spoken Word Spartanburg.
She
has served communities as a poet, social worker, child & crisis therapist,
child abuse forensic evaluator, board member, & dialogue facilitator.
Her work
honors her obsessions with ancestry, memory, & the soul commitment of self-embodiment.
// work & self-embodiment
Current Work in Progress:
Publications
Acres of Ancestry, Emergence Magazine, 2020
Three Poems, Root Work Journal, 2020
Social Worker I & Social Worker II, Screen Door Review, 2020
The Moon, Shuddhashar Magazine, 2019
Getting Lighter, Spark & Echo Arts, 2019
Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice for an Entangled World, Penn State University Press, 2019
i am from a punch & a kiss // the book, 2017
Sparrow’s Trill, Minerva Rising, 2015
FRUITS of the confederacy & Shine, Flycatcher Journal, 2015
Music & Collaborations
Silsilad Gabay, with soprano, Jazmin Black Grollemund, 2020
Restoration: A Concert Film, Acres of Ancestry & Native Son, 2020
Paris, 2019
i am from a punch & a kiss // the mixtape, 2018
Honors
2021 Tin House Own Path Scholar
2019 Emrys Keller Cushing Freeman Scholar
2019 SC Humanities Fresh Voice of the Year
2017 Business & Professional Women of South Carolina, Woman of Accomplishment