Artist bio

My name is sanjae Innis, I am a 19 year old screenwriter, poet and actress who was was born and raised in Jamaica. Writing is a form of rehab for me, and being young unemployed and unable to fund myself through college, I was excited when I saw the advertisement, and eager to write, however for someone who loves to write it was ironic that this was a challenging for me, I to a certain extent had forsaken my first home; God and the church and I didn’t feel connected enough to write about God. But upon reading the related verses I began to pray and sing and give God the praise I have been holding back, and already, I’m positive and optimistic about my future and what he has in store for me, simply because I stand with the armor of God, he shall make me happy and fulfilled. I have been writing since I was nine, when it first happened, and now I have found love, peace and a sense of fulfillment in my poems and in my God .

Title

Ashamed to Engage

Medium/Genre

Spoken Word

Artist Statement

My spoken word piece, was inspired from my inability to write, I have always been able to write poems, short stories and screenplays effortlessly but when I needed to write about God, I couldn’t, I felt as though I’m just using his words for my own selfish purposes and not truly being about him or for him. I was going back and forth with myself as I felt as though a part of me was eager to write and another part of me just didn’t want to and so it was like there was a battle with myself and my thoughts. but when I began to pray and worship God, I felt like I was at peace with my self and somewhat ‘worthy’ of my fathers words and this is how ‘Ashamed to Engage’ was written

How it fits into contest

This work was fit into the topic the spiritual battle found in Ephesians 6:10-20, because my spoken word, portrays me trying to write about God but instead I couldn’t because I Didn’t feel as though it was my place to write about God, this to me, felt like spiritual forces were trying to stop me from writing about God or even reading his scriptures, and to me it felt like there was an unseen battle in its smallest form at play, and once I put on the armor of god by forcing myself to read the Bible I was able to ‘pull through’ and write about Gods glory

Credits

Sanjae Innis is the writer of this piece, who also performed and edited it.

Transcript / Lyrics

N/A

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