Kerry Jo Bell

NationalPoetryMonth.ca April 20, 2023

Roots by Kerry Jo Bell is published on NationalPoetryMonth.ca on April 20, 2023

From Kerry Jo Bell

“My inspiration to write roots was twofold. Firstly, whenever I feel like society’s norms are knocking me off of my feet I remember Harriet Tubman’s fight and how firmly she stood in the face of history’s worst adversities, and the work she was able to achieve with the Underground Railroad. She gives me the courage to stand tall, rooted, grounded and solid in my modern day stance in the face of injustice. My poetry is my activism.

My second inspiration, and reason for writing this piece, came from the talented storyteller, author, activist, and journalist, Ta-Nehisi Coates. His novel, The Water Dancer unleashed something in me propelling me forward, determined to be a more erudite and skillful writer.

Coates is known for his in-depth research married with entertaining syntax with inflections of poetry. His works, especially the afore mentioned, took me back to my roots in a way historians never could. This piece is an homage, not just to Tubman and Coates, but also to my ancestors, who had the foresight to plant seeds that grew into tall trees with strong roots that now shade me from intolerable injustices. They bared the blunt of it, rooted out the weeds, so that I could set my own roots on solid fertile ground.”

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