MEGAN DUFFY

 
 

My grandfather’s footprint crosses in Ballycastle, Ireland.          
            The soil rich as his soul                                      
                                     A family of ties                                  
                                 Learned through knots

I put on my trousers to be in                            
                           A country of farmers and drinkers
Root the soils of their heritage                              
                               Farming for our current life

My ancestors starved diseases, for my health to succeed                              
                            The jobs they were turned
Down from greed                                
                              Started the stereotype
Which continued by sight

the soil I lay on            
          The soil he planted on                    
                The roots of my history                          
                       The plants of my story

The diseases of our legacy
For us to live freely                                
                              To love and to find home

Starved for equality
                              For us to be together
Because we won’t be put          
          Into the ‘ other ‘
whiteness never gives without taking

It is my duty to give back
land and legacy, it ends with me
                  Seen as one
A family rooted from a lineage
                   To stand tall on the soil of our farms
                                   Roots us back
                  To the soil
                   My grandfather's footprint crosses.

In Ballycastle, Ireland

 
 

IT ENDS WITH ME

2022

Medium: Poetry

Writing this poem allowed me to really think back on my past and where my family comes from and how far the lineage is carried. I didn’t have that many hardships given my identity and I fully am aware of my privilege. Learning about where your family comes from not only gains yöu knowledge of how people may have lived in the past but it can connect yöu to your roots and your true sense of being. Being able to truly overcome the hardships of how people see you and just being comfortable with the family you were born into is a blessing in itself. All these factors inspired me to look back into my past and really try to connect with what my family has forgotten.

 
 
 
 

ARTIST | Megan Duffy

They/Them

I’m a 17 year old non binary poetry writer, born of Irish descent and a supporter of the POC communities and everything they stand for, I use the privilege I have to try and speak up about problems groups of minorities face to bring awareness to not just family but the general public. Supporting those who need it most is what I strive to do.

Email: Megan.duffy2004@hotmail.com

 
 

ARTIST MENTOR | Cassandra Myers

Cassandra Myers(they/she) is a queer, non-binary, crippled, mad, South-Asian-Italian performance poet and counsellor from Tkaronto, Ontario. Raised in the slam poetry community for seven years, Cassandra has earned titles such as the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word Champion. As she transitions to the page, her work has won the ARC Poetry Magazine's Poem of the Year Award 2021 and the Reader's Choice Award, and long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize 2021. Their first collection of poems, Smash the Headlights, is forthcoming from Write Bloody North Publishing. Find them online @myers.cass or at their website: cass.myers.com As a mixed South Asian and Italian person, it’s part of my arts praxis to encourage my white mentees to explore their own lineage and heritage. Whiteness is erasure, forgetting, and amnesia, so to look into our lineage as white folks is to work in opposition to the monolith of whiteness that swallows and destroys. Megan’s work speaks directly to this practise and is aligned with my own best practises for speaking about my Italian heritage.