Mackayla Forde. She has auburn locs styled in an updo stands at a microphone, wearing a vibrant off-the-shoulder African print dress in blue, yellow, and black. She has gold hoop earrings, red lipstick, and a conference lanyard around her neck.

“Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives” - Audre Lorde

Who I am

I am Mackayla Forde — a poet, researcher, editor and educator. For over three decades, I’ve been using words to speak truth to power.

My work lives at the intersection of art and scholarship — weaving Poetic Inquiry with decolonial research to centre marginalised voices and challenge the narratives that silence them.

I’m currently completing my PhD at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, funded by the London Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership (LISS‑DTP). My research is the first of its kind in the UK, exploring how Black women use poetry to navigate mental health challenges. My work as a poet and academic has lead to my ongoing role as an editor for the International Journal for Poetry Therapy.

Through a decolonial and feminist paradigm, my research rejects colonial frameworks of knowledge production by centring lived experiences and epistemologies (ways of knowing) in the study as valid forms of knowledge.

A woman with long loc'ed hair holding a microphone, standing behind a clear podium, on a stage with a brick wall background.

My work is guided by the following principles:

Voice-Centred Practice

I believe that every voice is important and every story matters. I prioritise listening, co-creation, and mutual respect.

Decolonial Research

I challenge extractive and colonial knowledge systems by centring lived experience and creative methodology.

Black Feminist Ethics

My approach is rooted in care, power-awareness, and the political necessity of centring embodied knowledges.

Creative Integrity

I honour the power of poetry not just as expression, but as a rigorous, meaningful form of research and resistance.

Emotional Safety & Consent

I work to create spaces where people feel seen, heard, and safe to share their truth on their own terms.

Impact Through Imagination

I believe that changing the world starts with reimagining how we listen, create, and learn together. Research should do more than gather data. It should open space for truth, healing, and transformation.

A classroom or computer lab with students, mostly girls wearing hijabs, and a woman with red dreadlocks standing and speaking to the students.

What I Do

I work with researchers, educators, community leaders and health-based organisations who want to use poetic inquiry as more than an “add‑on” — but as a transformative way of thinking, creating and generating knowledge.

Whether you're looking to evaluate a project through verse, design a decolonial research process, or train your team in community-led storytelling through poetry, using my specialist expertise and embodied knowledge I can help you turn voice into method — and method into radical change.

Who I Work With

I collaborate with people and organisations committed to equity, justice, and change.

I am especially drawn to:

  • Researchers using qualitative or arts‑based methods

  • Universities & Research Centres embracing decolonial approaches

  • Community Groups & Charities amplifying marginalised voices

  • Artists & Cultural Practitioners blending creativity and social justice

If your work challenges the status quo and reimagines how we tell stories, we’re already speaking the same language.

A woman with long dreadlocks stands at a podium with microphones, addressing an audience.

Fancy a Virtual Coffee?

If something here resonates, let’s have a quick chat. Bring your idea, your challenge, or your curiosity, and I’ll give you 15 minutes of my time to explore how poetic inquiry can help you tell the stories that need telling.