JACKSON, Tennessee – A nonprofit organization is honoring the life of its late co-founder.

“Rose approached me one time when I was working for the Metro Forum newspaper at the time and said, ‘Let’s try to organize a poetry group meeting once a month or something.’ Crystal Coleman owned a bookstore downtown and she allowed us to use her bookstore one Friday a month for meetings, and that’s how we started,” said Bill Marable, president of the Griot Collective.

The Griot Collective of West Tennessee is an organization of writers.

On Friday evening, members of the organization and community took time to honor the life of the late Rose Parrish.

“She loved East Jackson and didn’t want to live anywhere else but East Jackson on Berry Street. As we all know, there were difficult things in East Jackson, Rose didn’t see that. Rose saw the good. That’s why she wrote good things about life in the neighborhood,” said James Theus Jr., a friend of Rose.

Parrish’s poems reflected the lives of the people who lived in East Jackson and those she met during her lifetime.

Members of the Griot Collective spoke and shared poems about what Rose meant to them.

“Rose could have had a career in many fields, poetry is one of them. Because she could have been on the same level as everyone we know about Maya Angelou, James Cherry and Bill Marable. They are all good people with a talent for writing poetry,” said Theus Jr.

Members and friends also expressed their kindness about her legacy in the community.

At the TR White Sportsplex, Rose’s picture hangs along with her biography and an original poem for anyone who wants to learn more about her hard work.

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