In Conversation with Brittani Samuel – ‘My God, my ground!’
It’s been one week since we dropped the promo video for Your Silence Will Not Protect You (which you can watch here) and we want to use today to highlight the amazing poet behind the piece “My God, my ground!” - Brittani Samuel.
Below, she discusses how she approached writing her poem for the zine, as well as her work as a Black woman storyteller in the drama/theater space.
What’s your story? Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today.
I think of myself as a writer in all facets. I do social media marketing and advertising for different theater companies in New York. I’ve done that since after college - I graduated in 2017. Just working in the arts like I’ve always wanted to, I felt called to express more of my creative side so I write poetry, I write plays, scripts, anything that’s on my heart really. Whatever story comes to me what medium would be best for it.
How did you approach writing your piece, “My God, my ground!?”
I saw it as - you know one of the things I’ve come to realize this year is just how complacent I was in a lot of my habits and just with everything that’s happened this year - in terms of the Black Lives Matter movement and more protests and uprisings around the country - around the world. Because I was at home - I’m working from home - I just got to sit with it more and not have to look at it and then go run to a work meeting. With that, I think my own voice, my natural feelings towards things - rather than just going based off of what I’m seeing on social media - and just having the opportunity to sit with myself and my own emotions lead me to start writing this.
This notion of world-building is what I’m all about, it’s why I write. According to the rules of Creationism, God created the world in seven days and on the seventh day, He rested. So I took that structure, and imagined - like if I were to imagine a new world, what would I first have to do, what reflections would I have to take. Hence why there are seven stanzas in the poem and the last one ends in rest.
You’re a freelance journalist who covers theater - One quote from an article about Black women playwrights you wrote for ZORA that I loved said “the word, written and spoken, is one of the most important tools that human beings have to connect to one another. Theater then, which utilizes both forms, has greater potential to unify than any other medium.” What would you say is the state of Black storytelling in the theater world?
I mean, the only reason we’re talking right now is because of words. We’re saying them, we shared over them. I think it’s amazing how Black women can connect with one another across time, across generations - through words. And I don’t take that for granted. I have a bookshelf back there with a lot of my favorite books and most of those authors are deceased Black women. The fact that I can still use their words today to fuel my fight is phenomenal.
The same thing is happening in theater. Prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, we had an unprecedented number of Black women playwrights, off-Broadway specifically which is why I wrote that piece - and not that I think that just having these dope ass women is enough, we need to support them and nurture them - it’s something I didn’t even see when I was a kid growing up in theater. I didn’t know I could want to be in theater because I wasn’t taught plays by Black women. It just wasn’t in the cultural ether, so to speak.
So to see what’s happening now and to see how vocal Black women are being - it’s just about claiming our space and not waiting for anybody to make space for us. We’re here, we’re taking up space, and we can do absolutely anything, including theater. So it’s really inspiring to see what so many women are doing in that space.
As a journalist who does her research - I also saw that you’re a fan of Rihanna? I’m also a fan of Rihanna so I just wanted to bring that up.
Fan, daughter, if she was a religion that’s what I would study.
Brittani Samuel (she/her/hers) is a dramatic writer and entertainment journalist born and bred in New York. Her work is most rooted in a desire to explore, unveil and uplift Black female identities. Her scripts are acts of services to the young and confused. Her writing has been featured and developed at the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Blackboard Plays, The Blacklist, The Fade to Black Reading Series, BOLD 2020 Play Festival, (Upcoming: National Black Theatre of Harlem). Find her on Instagram.
