She has been called "the bard of Instagram", a network where she accumulates more than two hundred thousand followers. She has modeled for Apple, Estée Lauder and Nike. Ten years ago, her self-published literary debut, Bonerocked the international charts, helped in part by self-confessed fans like Florence + The Machine and Elliott Page. On May 15, on a warm night in Mexico City, Yrsa Daley-Ward performed on the premises of Lago.Algoas part of the first In-Tent Wellness Residency program, to sow inspiration in the form of words.
Yrsa is one of the referents of Instapoetry, that movement of social networks where poetry found a space in Instagram images. The model and writer grew up in Lancashire with her grandparents, religious fundamentalists attached to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. During her childhood, "I didn't go out anywhere except to see my cousins," she told the English newspaper The Guardian. As an adult, Yrsa moved to London, where she worked as a model and faced industry discrimination and the reality of sex work in the modeling world.
Throughout his life he has also lived in South Africa, Manchester and Los Angeles. Her mother was Jamaican and her father was Nigerian. However, Yrsa found a homeland in poetry. She started in live shows, where her intensity and unfiltered honesty won her an ever-growing audience. From there she moved to Instagram, where her poems began to gain traction alongside the work of other young poets from different parts of the world. That movement would later be called Instapoetry, and it would take the world by storm, giving thousands of young people back a taste for poetry. And then came the publishing success at the level of the physical book.
Her first self-published book, Bone, was a sales milestone that established her as a force in contemporary literature. Her growing notoriety attracted the attention of Penguin Random House Mondadori, the world's largest publisher. Through her poems, Yrsa explores themes of identity, love and trauma, resonating deeply with readers around the world. Inequality, race and gender run through her work. On more than one occasion, her audience sees in her pages a mirror. It is likely that this ability to connect led Yrsa to be signed by Beyoncé to co-write Black is King, the acclaimed film-accompaniment Queen B produced for the soundtrack to The Lion King.
The Terriblehis autobiographical novel, demonstrated that his potential to turn his experiences into literature also encompassed prose. It is that power to channel experience that allows him to connect with a wide audience. "Every time you wish for something different than what you have, you trigger a new series of events," Yrsa told the audience listening to her last night at the Lago.Algoone of the venues for this event.
Organized by In-Tent Wellness Residency, a project that facilitates community experiences led by global thought leaders in the wellness and personal development industry, Yrsa Daley-Ward's visit to Mexico is a necessary amplification of an urgent voice, and is the first in a promising series of residencies worth keeping an eye out for.
