Originally from Seattle Washington, Spoken Word Poet/Emcee and Teaching Artist Rajnii Eddins has been engaging diverse community audiences for over 30 years. He was the youngest member of the Afrikan American Writers Alliance at age 11 and has been actively sharing with youth and community in Vermont since 2010.
Rajnii’s diverse talents and passions allow him to offer a wide variety of powerful experiences that foster connection, learning, and mutual growth. He thrives at creating spaces that are educational, explorative, and celebratory, whether in a classroom, a conference hall, a community center, or online.
Offerings
Please fill out the form on the booking page to connect and talk about planning an engagement to fit your needs.
New Music
Work Together is the first single from Rajnii's solo studio debut You Might Remember Me. This song sets the landscape for the type of exquisite lyricism and content motivated by a devotion to seeing positive change in the world that you will find throughout the project. Powered by Rob Banks Beats diligently chopped samples, the song is a clarion call fit for the times. Nothing but affirmatives.
Unifying Black Families
I am reaching out to community as I now have the opportunity to bring my daughters together, so 2 sisters meet for the first time ever. Your support will help to reunite my oldest daughter with her father for the first time in 13 years and to reunite a grandmother with a granddaughter for the first time in 15 years.
Poetry
In The Coded Language Of This Mortal Tongue
Rajnii Eddins’ In The Coded Language Of This Mortal Tongue is a consistently moving, entrancing, and melodic collection of poems which address what fellow poet Amiri Baraka called “the changing same”. Eddins’ characteristically terse, riveting , (and frequently stinging) ruminations on the multi-lane highway that is – again to quote Baraka-“the African in the West”-are also laced with a love for language and its numerous aural possibilities… I highly recommend reading these works out loud. Let the words roll around your mortal tongues like a beverage of choice. We are more than a little lucky to have poets like Rajnii Eddins in this world.
Reuben Jackson
Poet/ Archivist, Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives, University of The District Of Columbia
Their Names Are Mine
Originally from Seattle Washington, Spoken Word Poet/ Emcee and Teaching Artist Rajnii Eddins has been engaging diverse community audiences for over 27 years. He was the youngest member of the Afrikan American Writers Alliance at age 11 and has been actively sharing with youth and community in Vermont since 2010. His work Their Names Are Mine aims to confront white supremacy while emphasizing the need to affirm our mutual humanity.
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Video
Reading
In Our Wake
A reading for Helen Day Arts Center Online
Upcoming Events
Interviews
I am a Vermont Artist: Rajnii Eddins
Vermont Arts Council
“Living in Vermont has influenced my art in many dynamic ways. The homogeneity has increased my awareness of the need to speak up about white supremacy and to hold space more intentionally for a myriad of underheard voices and narratives. I have also been inspired by many different artists to expand my capacity for collaboration across multiple genres of musical expression. The land itself being the original home to the Abenaki people has often spoken to me in profound ways and being in nature I feel there is so much to be gained from the spirit that existed here prior to colonization and is still here.”
Testimonials
“Rajnii’s tongue is ancestral, and his spirit is free. In the tradition of sacred word-warriors, he names the fallen and the martyrs with extraordinary grace and a humbling consciousness that manifest light in all directions. His fiery poems ration out eternal wisdoms that call forth simply a substitution of love for hate and a spiritual reckoning so that we all can breathe. Sing on, dear brother.”
Major Jackson
Poetry Editor of Harvard Review
“Rajnii Eddins breathes through the written word. A full recital that allows us to see more clearly the dimly lit spaces of the black romantic. For over 2 decades, this poet, father, teacher and son has allowed the spoken word to be a guide and refuge. In his words, there is refuge for which I always felt drawn. When I'm with Rajnii, I often feel strong in his silence and watch him craft truth as he lives such that listening, breathing and writing become synonymous. It's rare that the light of hope shines so brightly these days and when it does we must stand forward and receive the light, lest we in our efforts, grow dim. Rajnii shares the long awaited letter from your dearest friend, your closest sister and the villain who attempts to steal our laughter. If you ride these poems, you will arrive at peace. Thank you Raj for your light.”
Theaster Gates
Social Practice Installation Artist
Featured in Time Magazine
“It is one thing to possess ( and be possessed by) deep wells of love and/or anger-Quite another to craft poems which honor and acknowledge the aforementioned without drowning the artist’s originality and vision. Rajnii Eddins’s work embodies Amiri Baraka’s definition of poetry (“speech musicked”)-and it takes us into often uncomfortable, painful places in an original –compelling, often haunting manner.
Whether the poet is standing his ground with proud, searing incantations like those found in the title poem, or successfully working the thematic tightrope of love and personal ( and cultural) determination, the work in this volume consistently pulls the reader in, and leaves our hearts no choice but to eagerly follow, page after page after page. I admire his poetic range, depth and courage as much as I admire the fact that he practices –and shares-his work while living in a racial cauldron like Vermont.
Do not sleep on the work of Rajnii Eddins.”
Reuben Jackson
Former host of VPR’s Friday Night Jazz
"The student response to him was so positive, and I think his impact will reach far beyond our ability to gauge it. The poetry students wrote was deep and wise (at least in the 5/6 group that I attended), and I think those students are likely to keep those poems for a long time and look back at them. Because his writing prompts was about peace, their poetry documented the concerns of the day and how they were feeling about them.
Rajnii himself embodies love and wisdom. His authentic care for the children, his risk-taking, the way he entrusted the students with serious topics and elements of his own life was powerful. I was stirred up for the rest of the myself."
Edorah Fraser
Principal of Robinson Elementary School
Starksboro, VT
“His poetry was not only moving, but he shared what it is like to be Black in America. He provided a space to have students write what peace means to them, and then allowed some to share their writings if they wanted to. It was a meaningful and eye opening experience for ALL ages and cultural backgrounds.”
Heather Smith
Student at Antioch University Seattle Masters in Education Program
Praise from the Culturally Responsive Leadership Connector NH Conferernce, 2019
“Rajnii presented very compelling evidence that childhood trauma prevents children from accessing higher order cognitive processing skills, and that music, dance, and other artistic activities can assist in healing.”
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“He was amazing!! His performance, energy and message was heartfelt. The best for me in the entire conference.”
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“He was so good to hear and meet, his personal and political and artist voice is strong and kind and non- threatening. He exemplified patience and peace and is power of example.