About Me

I’m Shakeema Smalls—a poet and developmental book editor in both non-fiction and poetry drama genres. Raised by the tides of Georgetown, South Carolina,  I believe that the language and voices of our ancestors are living and breathing. I earned a  B.A. in Philosophy from Howard University and an M.A. in  Clinical Counseling from Goddard College. I’m a 2022 PEN America Emerging Voices alum, a Tin House Winter Workshop alum, and the 2024 Markus L. Manley Fellow and Poet-in-Residence at The Poetry Lab. I currently serve as a Content Quality Specialist in the SaaS Knowledge Management arena, where I help global teams make sense of complex data with clarity and care. Whether in the workplace or on the page, I believe in the power of thoughtful organization of ideas, stories, and lived experiences. 

My poetry praxis is extremely communal and inspired by my own Gullah Geechee culture, where we center sharing and making beautiful things of what we have. These are the narrative lines that run through my work as I explore oppression, intimacies, resistance, personal rebellion, and spiritual transcendence. 

 My work, whether in poetry, content strategy, or community-building—is an act of devotion: to precision, to story, and to the unapologetic voices that shape our world.