Tethered to the Root

Tethered to the Root is a poignant meditation on ancestral heritage, historical memory, and personal reckoning.
The collection opens with a frank confrontation of inherited privilege, tracing the poet's descent from French settlers and slaveholders in Louisiana's sugarcane fields to a grandfather who managed a Cuban sugar mill. The recurring motif of "white sugar equals white privilege" underscores the uneasy sweetness of material inheritance built on exploitation. Family photographs and artifacts serve as gateways to the past, animating the lives of relatives and reconstructing moments from faded images. Historical detail blends with imaginative empathy, inviting readers to inhabit the liminal space between memory and history. The poet's journey to Jobabo, Cuba, decades after her grandparents' departure, becomes a pilgrimage to the ruins of a once-thriving sugar mill, reflecting on loss, change, and the enduring marks of American intervention.
Domestic spaces and childhood memories in the second section are rendered with equal care and illuminate the subtle ways in which privilege, tradition, and affection are transmitted-or withheld-across generations.
Poems about the author's two daughters from China, and meditations on heritage both lost and gained through their adoption, highlight the third section of the book. Its closing poems turn inward, contemplating the act of remembrance itself-sifting through ephemera, dust, and family chronicles in search of meaning and connection.
Marked by lyrical precision and vivid imagery, the collection balances nostalgia with critical self-awareness. It invites readers to witness the complexities of inheritance and the ongoing work of understanding one's place within the sweep of history. Ultimately, the book offers a powerful reflection on the legacies we inherit, the histories we must confront, and the choices we make about what we will leave behind.