“Latitude of Roots” by Shuyu Zheng
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Latitude of Roots” by Shuyu Zheng, third place winner of the 2025 Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth, junior category.
Latitude of Roots
By Shuyu Zheng
At birth, the knot’s curve in my cord defined
The softest fold of borders’ crimson crest
Mother’s milk brewed in dialect now swells
To monsoon-soaked fields where my throat finds rest
Father carves our lineage down my spine
Each bone sprouts new roots when we realign
Surnames scattered overseas now bend
As question marks in foreign soil’s design
Passport stamps tile ancestral eaves with time
Rain bleaches vowels where consonants entwine
When migratory wings score the sky’s skin
My homeland hums between these ribs of mine
Tonight I pluck my rib to paddle through
The map’s unhealed wound, still tender-blue
All dandelion exiles know this truth—
Deep in humus cradles dawn’s endless bloom
Copyright © Shuyu Zheng
Third place winner of the 2025 Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth, junior category.
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