Artistic Statement
I’m a child of southern drawl, of iced tea with just enough lemon, family reunions that last late into hot summer nights, round tables of relatives reminiscing the good ole days, and the sounds of their laughter as comforting as hot tea and delicate windchimes. I use the language of my family to quilt love songs for Black people. I write plays that invite my people to stop and rest awhile as they refamiliarize themselves with our home of poetic diction, hand games and song, and Black women forever changing the world. Pulling our collective breath from my bones, I evoke the past, present, and future, and write to remind Black women that they are loved, that they’re soft, powerful, capable of resting, deserving of liberation, and that they are everything- that they always have been.
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Celeste Jennings
Artistic Statement
I’m a child of southern drawl, of iced tea with just enough lemon, family reunions that last late into hot summer nights, round tables of relatives reminiscing the good ole days, and the sounds of their laughter as comforting as hot tea and delicate windchimes. I use the language of my family to quilt love songs for Black people. I write plays that invite my people to stop and rest awhile as they refamiliarize themselves with our home of poetic diction, hand games and song, and Black women forever changing the world. Pulling our collective breath from my bones, I evoke the past, present, and future, and write to remind Black women that they are loved, that they’re soft, powerful, capable of resting, deserving of liberation, and that they are everything- that they always have been.