So, I’ll Stay, Sitting With You.
Hi! My name is Britny Virginia Albert.
I joined Theatre Peckham in November 2020. I began volunteering as a programme assistant with TP’s associate director and have been enjoying the challenges and joys of being part of a robust team focused on delivering phenomenal theatre for our community!
In that time, I also released and launched my first ever poetry collection called ‘So, I’ll Stay, Sitting With You.’!!!
It was an extraordinary achievement and advancement in my confidence and I still can’t believe I did it!
I began writing my book in March 2020 and officially finished and self-published in October 2020. Prior to this, I already had a few poems while studying Creative Writing at university. I decided to use these poems as a foundation for my book and build on the themes from there.
My book is about my Christian faith and how that helps me through difficult times as a disabled black woman and someone who has struggled with self-esteem issues. It also highlights the importance for me to look up at my God rather than low at my circumstances.
People often associate me with confidence, bravery or fierceness, but they don’t realise the source and factor of my strength is my faith. They also don’t understand that I see strength in my weakness. As I bare my soul before man, they encounter the ugly, raw truth that I have battled with. And the best part of this is the constant presence of my God who will sit there in all my rut and reaffirm His love for me. That is mystery that continually needs to be unfolded. And that is why no matter how bad or good things get, I will choose to sit there with my God through it all.
It has been amazing hearing the feedback that this book has generated from people in Australia to France and the United States! I am amazed and so grateful. While writing this book, I knew that there would be poems in the book which would resonate with some and not others. I knew there would be at least one poem that would grab the reader’s core immediately and never let them go.
I also knew that people from all walks of life would be able to connect to the heart of the poems despite their own religious or non-religious beliefs.
My greatest hope for this book is for my reader to pick it up from time to time and find breakthrough through my honesty and realness.
I love each poem and believe each poem is important, but I have two poems which are my overall favourite which makes me smile each time I read it or feel depths of my heart at the time that I wrote it.
Each poem has its own season, so there are some poems which speak louder in certain seasons of a person’s life while others a different season and some poems can be seen as universal.
My favourite part of my book is how I present my writing style. It is extremely versatile. I go from free verse to epics to narrative and somewhat blank verse. I love this because I wanted my reader to be on a journey emotionally as well as reading through the ups and down, they have to take while reading and discovering the depths of the poem. I wanted the reading experience to be as fun or joyous as possible! And I hope it was a success!
I was also nominated by TP for the Future Theatre Fund in association with Tik Tok! Though I was unsuccessful I am very grateful for the opportunity. I created a promotional video for my book and advertised it leading up to the launch day. It is a voice-over of one of the poems in my book about my disability and the strength supplied by my relationship with God. Subsequently, I also upload this video for my Future Theatre Fund application. I hope you enjoy it!
I want to encourage you, to take that step you are hesitating to take! Do not worry about the critics, worry about the regret you will feel if you don’t do this!
Everyone is special and fully capable to do the things we’ve all set out to achieve.
You can find more about me at www.britnyvirginiaa.com
You can get a copy of my book on Amazon.
Thanks for reading!
Britny Virginia