I'm Jazmine Cartwright also known as Support Your Local Poet.

I'm a 22-year-old barista, writer and a spoken word poet. I currently have two books out: 'Upgrade' & 'Rebirth'... My third 'Awakening' is in the works but, I'm moving house soon so waiting on that to be running before any more is revealed!

I fell in love with poetry as a young child. My grandparents raised me and gave me lots of poetry books so there was always something good to read, this had such a massive impact and inspired me to start writing poetry. 

When I was at college I started creating videos for spoken word pieces which you can find on YouTube, if you look hard enough... I may even find and link them. During this time Run Your Tongue was doing their thing at The Three Cocks in Kettering. Now, I'd never been to a spoken word poetry night, let alone performed at one and decided to go. Rob Reeves asked if I wanted to read out some stuff and I agreed nervously. Flicking through my notes and finding a few poems to read off my phone. (Which I don't reccomend by the way, always read off paper or learn your poems, but that's another story...) During the interval I was approached by Sammy Nour! The absolute legend, he was featuring at that night and gave me lots of praise and tips. Sammy is the reason that after that night I went from writing a few poems to considering myself a poet!

Time went on, I continued to write but didn't perform as much because mum passed away, I moved out of the flat with dad and started living alone at seventeen years old. There was a lot on. Life was not tough but a little busy. 

It was then time for university! I kept myself to myself and was going through working on my mental health big time! Sitting, contemplating and thinking... What makes me happy?

Poetry!

I'd looked through some local Leicester events and ran across Some Antics, a spoken word night that also did collective meet ups. I went out of the blue and who was running Some Antics? Legend: Sammy Nour!

So here I am with my jaw on the floor and a bit more confidence. Some Antics was my monthly thing. I met other like minded poeple and I fit in, and was wanted and appreciated for the first time in life. 

In the third year of uni, our final creative writing project was to self publish a book. So I slaved away and produced 'Upgrade'. The books were selling great and Some Antics helped with a book launch. I think there was about 120 copies of Upgrade sold which is absolutely ridiculous. I was bringing copies everywhere and even started going to pubs and getting drunk people to buy them haha!

Just as life and poetry was going perfect, I moved from Leicester to a small village called Rushden. Now this is where I lived before university and where I had met my partner, Kieran. I was gutted to leave Leicester but knew it had to be done. Working between shifts at a coffee shop, I spent two years writing my second book 'Rebirth' and my God what a book it was. My dad had passed away and I didn't really know what to do with myself. Kieran and I were living at his mums house who I am forever grateful to and owe her so much, but we shared a single bed and I had no space to write. So we saved for a motgage, got accepted and the rest is history. I have a desk now!

So that is pretty much everything up until now. We should be moving into the new house in the next few weeks and once that is done, book 3 can actually be taken seriously! 

I hope you guys are looking forward to it as much as we are. 

Speak soon

Jazmine :)