POET on the rise Fu Zion, whose inspirations come from his daily experiences, sees himself as a social commentator.

“As a poet my inspirations come from various different things from day to day living. So, I consider myself as a social commentator,” Fu Zion, who was born Rudolph Thomas, told the Observer.

Fu Zion made his debut on the open mic session at last year’s Calabash Literary Festival, however, he is also a singer. “Poetry is coming straight from my heart. But believe it or not, I actually avoided CXC English because of poetry,” confessed the past student of Bridgeport High School.

However, Fu Zion was quick to add. “Right now I recently put out an album with poetry, but I am not limited to poetry. I am a singer as well. Earlier on before the poetry, I used to write songs. Then after a while I notice that the work was coming out in the form of poetry. So I just stick with it and since then I’ve been working with poetry. In future times I’m thinking of doing the two, but right now I’m just concentrating on poetry.”

Having said that, he then made a rather startling revelation of how he wrestled with himself for a while after having been stigmatised as a child because of his skin colour. And it was this experience that drove him to write his first poem, Mirror Mirror.

“Based on my earlier experiences as a child, I was stigmatised, being the darkest skin person in my family I was ‘black and nuh good’ and that sort thing,” he explained.

“So that Mirror Mirror thing deh now, a look me a look within myself because in that poem I was analysing the whole thing about bleaching really,” Fu Zion revealed. “So I was examining bleaching and at one point I was even wondering if I should try it, as I felt that I would be more socially accepted.”

He, however, resisted the temptation to bleach and has now overcome all the negative slurs that were aimed at him, and today he is extremely confident about himself.

“I stuck with myself, took the ridicules, took the teasing and all of that. I never really knew that one day I would be this confident about myself or even by skin. But now that I am, I am glad I never did anything to try and alter me,” said the pharmaceutical sales rep who told the Observer that as a poet his moniker means “That only few shall enter Zion.”