Lexington's 2022 Youth Poet Laureate

Kiitan Adedeji's Artist Statement

I often find myself awake at midnight thinking about my life experiences and how they have shaped me as a black woman. I have found that one of the best ways to capture my experiences is through poetry. By reading other black Kentucky poets, like Crystal Wilkinson and Bernard Clay, I can set a standard for how I want to use poetry to express my identity. Poetry gives me an opportunity to express myself in a way that prose could never achieve. With poetry, I can find the heart of something and with each poem, I can discover something new within my black experience. It’s what I love about poetry; I can bring my experiences into a new life to be shared with everyone.