When speaking to poet Staceyann Chin, it’s hard not to be taken by the sound of her voice.

That voice -- that honey-thick Jamaican accent that makes a point of emphasizing every other syllable -- is unmistakable. Chin’s unique cadence has served her well, whether on stage at New York’s storied spoken-word spot the Nuyorican Cafe, on Broadway as an original performer on the Tony-Award winning “Russell Simmons: Def Poetry Jam” or during any one of her one-woman, autobiographical shows; it adds even more weight to her work about the space she occupies as a radical, progressive, half-black, half-Chinese lesbian who has adopted New York as her home after leaving her native country because of homophobic persecution.

At home with Staceyann and Zuri

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