animateduniverse

Samantha’s long-awaited debut collection of poetry is here!

Straddling dimensions, geographies, and voices, this long-awaited debut poetry collection by Samantha Thornhill invites you to experience life through the intimate lens of a contemporary griot and oracle. Thornhill’s hybrid identity as a Trinidadian-American informs the sparkling originality of her verses that invite, delight, and ignite the imagination with their enchanting images and ideas.

Laced with imaginative odes to orcas, aprons, banana slugs, and darkness itself, in the tradition of Pablo Neruda, many of these vivid poems carry a dream-like quality, serving as symphonic missives to the cosmos. Shimmying through timelines and themes of a Caribbean childhood and US migration, coming of age, femininity, sexuality, the justice system and more, what prevails amidst these weightier conversations is a relentless buoyancy and commitment to a gratitude that skillfully, playfully observes the sacred in the mundane.

This timeless work, spanning 20 years of seasons spent throughout the US, Caribbean, and Southern Africa, this rising multinational voice of the triangular trade situates itself at an intersection of converging roads: gender, ethnicity, and nationality. Each line in these pages lands in the ear with a sonic integrity that holds performative power and potential, as these poems have been presented on stages across the world.

A container for distinct images, impressions, and perspectives, The Animated Universe transmits cosmic truths that activate the inner knower, seer, and scribe in all. A necessary addition to the archive, this electric body of work opens up a timely and necessary portal in today’s literature.

Purchase The Animated Universe today!
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BOOK ANGEL

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EDUCATOR
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PERFORMER
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CURATOR
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WRITER

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ORACLE

"SAMANTHA THORNHILL IS ONE OF THOSE BRILLIANT POETS WHOSE WRITING TALENT IS A RARE MIX OF GRIT, SOUL AND MUSIC. SHE INSPIRES THE POET IN EACH OF US AND GIVES THE HEART A PLACE TO ENJOY THE POWER OF WORDS."

- Andrea Davis Pinkney, VP Scholastic Press -

AUTHOR PERFORMER

  • Samantha holds her Bachelors in English / Creative Writing from Florida State University and a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) in Poetry from the University of Virginia. Samantha’s versatility as a writer allows her to exist successfully as a published poet and a children’s author. A global performer of her poetic works, Samantha has produced three poetry albums. Additionally, her poetry has been published in dozens of anthologies, literary journals, and digital outlets. She has written over 10 children’s books, which have been published by numerous publishers, or are forthcoming. The Animated Universe , published by Peepal Tree Press, is her debut poetry collection.

CREATIVE FACILITATOR

  • Samantha has served at a number of venerable institutions in her capacity as a creative facilitator. In both classroom and digital settings, Samantha is most lauded for creating a safe, engaging, and vulnerable container for people of all ages to activate the writer within. She has served as a writer/artist in residence at New York City School of the Arts and The Bronx Academy of Letters, where she taught year long creative writing electives to middle and high school aged youth. For Poets & Writers Inc., Samantha facilitated creative writing classes for senior citizens. She also served for ten years as poetry professor at the Juilliard School, where she taught poetry and performance to actors in training.

INTUITIVE ADVISOR

  • Samantha serves as a trusted intuitive advisor to people of all faith walks. As a grounded and connected channel, Samantha is adept at delivering gentle, graceful, and useful guidance on a realm of matters, both personal and professional. In 2020, Samantha formed The Aspirant Agency of Intuitive Talents, an intuitive advising and spiritual wellness collective comprising a team of gifted practitioners that use a variety of integrative techniques to assist aspirants on their life path. Their intuitive sessions are intended to bring aspirants to a space of heightened clarity, enlightenment, and empowerment.

"Samantha Thornhill is a wordsmith of the highest caliber. Powerful and playful, wise and wicked, laced with unfogettable images and deeply original ideas, her poems are the music to the kind of world I want to live in."

- Adam Mansbach, Author -

The legendary Angela Davis pictured below with Tribute to Odetta: Queen of Folk, a picture book written by Samantha Thornhill, illustrated by Stephan Alcorn, and published by Scholastic Press.

The legendary Angela Davis pictured with Tribute to Odetta: Queen of Folk, a picture book written by Samantha Thornhill, illustrated by Stephan Alcorn, and published by Scholastic Press.

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"SAMANTHA'S PASSION, TALENT AND INCREDIBLE WARMTH MADE FOR A SPACE WHERE WE COULD ALL BE OUR TRUEST SELVES AND THUS DISCOVER AND DELIVER OUR TRUEST WORK."

- Robin Silver, Workshop Participant -

BOOK SAMANTHA

APPEARANCES