to grow roots is a collection of poems about the direction humanity is headed, and reflections on the connection between ourselves, as well as between our small-scale, personal woes and the larger-scale struggles faced by our species due to our disregard for Nature.

This collection reflects on the author’s youthful eagerness to find connection, to form a found family, and to discover a sense of self through relationships with others. These concepts are explored in three parts:

I. then (yesterday) encompasses a nostalgic existentialism through reflections on the process of growing up in a world clearly headed toward its demise,

II. now (today) follows with a desire to find a place in the world and people with whom to connect despite the harsh conditions we find ourselves in,

III. then (tomorrow) brings a hopefulness for the future, finding reason in community, connection, and the interdependence between humanity and Nature.

This collection encourages the reader to connect with oneself, with others, and with the glorious earth beneath them — to make roots, to be human together, and to challenge ourselves to try something new and perhaps painful, because in the end, things will always turn out as they were meant to be.