Some Thoughts on Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, by Camille T. Dungy
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Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden by Camille T. Dungy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, is poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy's memoir of her "seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, Colorado." Dungy and her family moved to Fort Collins in 2013 and found the community had "restrictions about what residents could and could not plant' (front cover). Dungy resisted these "homogeneous policies," in her garden--a garden of many native plants, of diversity, a garden that is planted in cooperation with its environment. This garden becomes a "metaphor for how homogeneity threatens the future of our planet and why cultivating" diversity and intersectionality, might just save us.
Her memoir, centered in her garden, in the earth where her plants grow, becomes a cri de coeur for environmental justice. Her memoir is a the story of the African Diasp0ra, and its connections to the land where African Americans had lived and still live. She writes of family and community, and it is both a personal history and a commentary of our nation's history that is fraught with injustice and racism. This is a story of resistance and a call for change--no, a cry from the heart for change.
Soil is beautiful and wise, and sometimes heartbreaking. It is an important book and it will change you.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden by Camille T. DungyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, is poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy's memoir of her "seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, Colorado." Dungy and her family moved to Fort Collins in 2013 and found the community had "restrictions about what residents could and could not plant' (front cover). Dungy resisted these "homogeneous policies," in her garden--a garden of many native plants, of diversity, a garden that is planted in cooperation with its environment. This garden becomes a "metaphor for how homogeneity threatens the future of our planet and why cultivating" diversity and intersectionality, might just save us.
Her memoir, centered in her garden, in the earth where her plants grow, becomes a cri de coeur for environmental justice. Her memoir is a the story of the African Diasp0ra, and its connections to the land where African Americans had lived and still live. She writes of family and community, and it is both a personal history and a commentary of our nation's history that is fraught with injustice and racism. This is a story of resistance and a call for change--no, a cry from the heart for change.
Soil is beautiful and wise, and sometimes heartbreaking. It is an important book and it will change you.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
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