As ROOTed Rhythms' first-ever digital poetry exhibition, The Colours of Culture is a space for racialized Canadian poets to share their stories and inspire cultural dialogue across the country.
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Stay tuned for the release of ROOTed Rhythms' poet interviews, where we will dive deeper into the minds of our six extraordinary highlighted poets and their works: Alex Deng, Jordan Redekop-Jones, M. Gordon, Peace Akintade, Tianyi Li, and Winston Lê.
"Under a Sun that Never Sets"
"Under a Sun that Never Sets"
"I came from a land where the sun kissed the earth in hues of gold"
By: Aisha Hussien
"Dear Black Girl"
"Dear Black Girl"
"I come from a lineage of Black women / whose hands hold history too rich to be buried."
By: Akilah Walcott
"York Mills Station"
"York Mills Station"
"She’s walking between skyscrapers, / attempting to mimic a paper house"
By: Alex Deng
"Altar"
"Altar"
"There is an altar that I carry with me, / It is made up of the stories of everyone I meet, every place I’ve made a home for myself,"
By: Alicia Buchanan
"The Vest"
"The Vest"
"Does it ever feel like your loved ones are melting away like ice cream?"
By: Allison Chow(der)
"Montréal - a love letter to the family I found, wherever you are"
"Montréal - a love letter to the family I found, wherever you are"
"Your faces rise from the palms of my hands / like petal offerings"
By: Amaaya Dasgupta
"The Pressure of Extraction"
"The Pressure of Extraction"
"I feel the pressure / of having to extract myself / from my disorder / as we clash and don’t align."
By: Amber North
"My Roots"
"My Roots"
"Do you see these roots inside me? / Like the branches of ancestral wisdom, / planted by knowledge passed down generations— / aren’t there things you weren’t taught, but know are true in the core of your intuition?."
By: Bianca Modi
"Melanin Monroe"
"Melanin Monroe"
"In the beginning, the potter moulded me from sun baked clay, / He called me brown skin girl, trapped the sun in my eyes,"
By: Chidera Udochukwu
"Confluence"
"Confluence"
"We wander / Through the woods - across oceans / Because we love / The youth of our people - the generations to come"
By: Christina H. Lam
"Mooncakes"
"Mooncakes"
"Seasonal pastries / stuffed with salty moons, sweet paste / laced with memories."
By: Claris Lam
"I Will Always Love You"
"I Will Always Love You"
"Even though I’m not fully sure what love really is."
By: Crystabelle Mbielu
"Black Essence"
"Black Essence"
"The cankerworm that eats and leaves no crumbs, / It eats into the lives of us,"
By: Daniella Ogbole
"Translations"
"Translations"
"How often do words pass me by / struggling to convey that which should be mine."
By: Hamdi Abdi
"Gossamers"
"Gossamers"
"my Levantine arteries (sharayeen) / are threads from which / I try to weave my ancestors’ buried words into / poetry (shi’r)"
By: Hanan Hazime
"Mango (മാങ്ങ)"
"Mango (മാങ്ങ)"
"The blazing Sun in the backdrop, / balanced by the cool monsoon air, / showed mangoes gently dancing, "
By: Harish Mohan Kattalath
"there is something so dreamlike"
"there is something so dreamlike"
"there is something so dreamlike / a certain fashion / a turn of events / of green lights... suspense"
By: Helena Xu
"Sirens of Jericho"
"Sirens of Jericho"
"I’m seething. / My skin is thin and blood peeks through the pores / Little volcanoes let escape the pain / the horror, the gore."
By: Hibah Salaria
"The Bites of my Diasporic Mouth"
"The Bites of my Diasporic Mouth"
"Geographically, I am a place that does not / exist. Outside of a map, too many questions"
By: Jordan Redekop-Jones
"Danger"
"Danger"
"Tummy squeezing / aching. / Turning in circles / down in a spiral."
By: Lolade Durodola
"Find It In a Bowl"
"Find It In a Bowl"
"Mother, where have I come from? Little histories in a bowl. / Feed it to me. I poke around my intrigue in a bowl."
By: M. Gordon
"To Leave a Mark"
"To Leave a Mark"
"They ask where I'm from like it's a riddle I must solve"
By: Mark Anthony
"A Child of a Child of Displacement"
"A Child of a Child of Displacement"
"Nadine looks at her father’s face, the one she’s looked at so many times in her life, a face she’s studied under the under dim light."
By: Nadine El Ashy
"The White Key"
"The White Key"
"A sewn on smile glimmers / in the hush of the boardroom."
By: Nathalie De Los Santos
"Langar"
"Langar"
"Among clattering plates and overlapping voices, / I sit cloaked in the weight of memory—"
By: Parvati Mehmi
"A Conversation"
"A Conversation"
"I was born in open-handed grief, / among women praying to earth, not men,"
By: Peace Akintade
"Our Home on Native Land"
"Our Home on Native Land"
"They say Canada is practically oozing in a maple syrup niceness."
By: Rachel Barduhn
"Threads of Blood and Oil: A Turbans Weight"
"Threads of Blood and Oil: A Turbans Weight"
"As I sit on the woven carpet in my warm-toned living room, my mother pours coconut oil into the roots of my hair."
By: Ramneek Panchi
"The Color of My Desire"
"The Color of My Desire"
"The color of my desire is brown / Like my skin / that loathed thing"
By: Sakshi Taneja
"Welcome to the English Classroom!"
"Welcome to the English Classroom!"
"'The word Negro can be used in many different contexts.'"
By: Stecie K.
"I Can Still See"
"I Can Still See"
"Behind these eyes a light still remains / I had to let go of much because I had so much to gain"
By: Temarr Robinson
"A Rainbow Story"
"A Rainbow Story"
"Born as the lucky charm, / Daddy's girl, mom's dearest,"
By: Thushara Premarajan
"Book of Changes"
"Book of Changes"
"天 is a crop field circling. dog in the tractor seat. / the skin of my shoulder blades stretching a wish for flight."
By: Tianyi Li
"Silent Rebellion of the Self"
"Silent Rebellion of the Self"
"These walls are thin, but enduring. / Built from whispers passed down generations,"
By: Vaani Sai
"Ella"
"Ella"
"There is a formidable Woman / Living alone at the center of Her finca"
By: Mila Ardila
"a love like my own"
"a love like my own"
"From where I began to where I belong, / to the one who is a synonym to sacrifice, / to my mother."
By: Yasmin Said
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