Blessing Musariri’s relationship with poetry began in junior school after signing up for speech and drama lessons that she continued for six years. During this time, Blessing learned and recited poetry every year at the Allied Arts’ Eisteddford Festival and was examined by the Trinity College of Music Board (UK) in 1988. This exposure to poetry inspired her to begin writing her own poetry.
Many adolescent, angst-ridden collections later, Blessing had her first international publication in Granta’s New Writing Vol. 14 in 2006, with the poem ‘Popular Fiction’. This, along with another, ‘Holding On’, were read out on the BBC World Service Christmas Special in December 2005. In 2008, three of Blessing’s poems were featured in Poetry International Vol. 12 (San Diego State University Press). This publication included the poem ‘Pandemic’, which went on to win a special prize in the 2009 Susie Smith Memorial Prize.
In 2010, Blessing was one of four women poets featured in an anthology published by Cinnamon Press, Sunflowers in Your Eyes; the title of the book is a line taken from one of her poems. ‘Mitu’s Spice Tour’, also published in this anthology, was featured as The Saturday Poem in The Guardian online on 17 April 2010. Blessing was one of the two poets who participated in a ten-day promotional tour for Sunflowers in Your Eyes, which, besides visiting Wales and London, included a poetry session at the Guardian Hay Literary Festival.
Blessing also writes short stories, children’s stories, radio and screenplays and contemporary adult fiction.
