A lyrical meditation on ancestry, tradition and personal transformation, exploring how rituals shape identity across generations
by Kashiana Singh | illustration by Vinita Jain
The author of five poetry collections, poet Kashiana Singh lives in North Carolina. Her latest collection, The Dualities of Albireo, was released in June 2025 with The Poetry Box. She proudly serves as managing editor for Poets Reading the News and is president of the North Carolina Poetry Society. “This poem emerges from the tension between inheritance and departure: how ancestry speaks through the body before language is ready, how ritual carries both blessing and rupture. It reflects on displacement not as a matter of land but of voice.”
Vinita Jain is a North Carolina- based artist who likes to create vibrant and energetic works. Inspired by movement in the natural world, she uses bold gestural lines to create both representational and expressive abstract pieces. Affiliated with prestigious art organizations, her work has been published in The Pastel Journal and the book Art Journey, Abstract Paintings. “Working on the illustration for this poem to create a mood of conflict and tension was both a challenge and a fun project. “ Learn more at vinitajain.net
This article was originally published in the April 2026 issue of WALTER magazine.
