Wade grew up in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, to a white mother, Lori Rockett, and black father, Bernardo Wade.[1] At age 6, she “fell in love with writing” after taking a poetry course over the summer.[1]
After graduating high school, she decided to pursue fashion and moved to New York City to intern at Missoni. While in the city, she consulted for Alice + Olivia, modeled for Cartier and Armani, and worked as an office manager at Halston.[1]
Looking back on this period of her life, Wade reflects: “I was making money for the first time in my life, but I realized I wasn’t happy. Nobody tells you what to do when your girlhood dreams bump into your womanhood dreams.” She decided to travel the world and soon fell back into painting and poetry.[1]
“It’s so needed right now,” Kibibi Devero said of Wade’s positivity after hearing her speak at a Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. “Just to know that someone loves people enough to go out and foster that among other people, it’s just incredible to me.”
Wade, pours love into her work, which largely consists of handwritten poetry dispensed on social media. The comment sections below Instagram posts of her self-affirming mantras — such as “Maybe don’t be the one you are waiting on” and “Don’t let your heart get in the way of new love” — are littered with heart emoji and grateful messages.
Somehow, Wade avoids coming off as superficial to her audience of mostly millennial women. It’s a seemingly miraculous feat most of her generation’s “Instagram poets” have yet to master.
“[With] anything online, if it’s used as a starting-off point and not an answer, you really understand how it can be a tool for connectivity and not a weapon against our humanity,” Wade says, obliquely explaining her approach to sharing her work on social media.
The often disdainfully uttered “Instagram poet” label is one that former Teen Vogue editor in chief Elaine Welteroth emphatically rejects on behalf of her good friend.
“I actually think it’s reductive to call her an Instagram poet, because if we were to think of what Maya Angelou would look like, how her work would move through this world in this day and age, it would probably look like Cleo,” Welteroth says.
Wade’s artwork first appeared on Instagram in 2014. She had been working in the fashion industry, supporting herself as a consultant while creating art.
