This month we are spotlighting 'Black Girl Poems' by Adeola Yemitan.
Over the years Very Rascals has had the pleasure of working with and watching Adeola perform and write in many capacities. One moment that always lives rent free in Charlotte's mind was watching Adeola perform at an evening of new writing for Gutter Street. The song that Adeola wrote and performed was hauntingly beautiful and captivating to listen to, which is why we are honoured to share a slice of her thoughts with you this month.
About Adeola:
My name is Adeola Yemitan and I am an artist based in London. I'd call myself a performer - acting, singing, moving - and writer - of songs and various forms of poetry that I'm still finding my feet within. My background is in fine art and architecture, and I also did a two-year stint working at a church (!!), which became the most formative time of my life thus far. I love performing because I love being given the opportunity to understand people; I like to think that I am a good listener, and I believe a well-formed character comes from attentiveness and curiosity about how that person has become who they are within the story. And so writing is my way of listening to myself, wrestling with my own thoughts, and trying as best as possible to be attentive to what is going on within myself.
insta - @adeola.yemitan
twitter - @AdeolaRayDee
Why I wrote this piece:
I wrote these Black Girl Poems during the first lockdown in 2020. We'd all seen George Floyd's murder and conversations about race broke out in every area of society, whereas I think I cocooned. I think I felt a sense of guilt about being a black person who has been able to navigate their way through society with such ease, and I began wondering whether I had lost an integral part of myself in doing so. I didn't come to any solid conclusion, but these poems were my way of interrogating that feeling.
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by Adeola Yemitan