there are children playing in this park
and there is sand for when they land
in their mother’s arms
there is a lonely swing set
that has lost love to broken slides
and children singing “you cannot catch me!”
while a mother, watching their play, writes the seventh line of her abandoned poem.
Lanaire Aderemi is a Nigerian poet, playwright, and producer committed to amplifying and archiving untold stories. Her play an evening with verse writer won the 2019 Shoot Festival Artist Development Award and was commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre; the play was adapted into a film and screened at Story Story Festival. Her work on memory and Black feminist history has appeared in the BBC, Tate Modern, Birmingham Rep Theatre, and Africa Writes.
