Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 23 hours ago
What does it look like when we intentionally "wild" our gardens to resist homogenizing into a status quo that is far afield of what nature intended? For award-winning African American poet Camille Dungy, it meant not only thinking about how to sustain an ecosystem in her front yard in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, Colorado, but how she connected to the soil as someone whose ancestors were forced to do land labor. Dungy also reflects on what it means to write about connecting with nature akin to authors like Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, and John Muir. In her attempt to diversify the field of nature writing, Dungy eschews these authors' traditions of experiencing nature in solitude, being a Black mother with a young daughter to care for. "Just one guy – so often a guy – with no evidence of family or anyone to worry about but himself," she writes.
The John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Arts, and the Sarah P. Duke Gardens sponsored an evening with the award-winning poet and memoirist Camille Dungy as she read from and discussed her new book, "Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden," published by Simon & Schuster. The event was also co-sponsored by the Department of African and African American Studies and the Department of English at Duke University.
Find her book here: simonandschuster.com/books/Soil/Camille-T-Dungy/9781982195311
The main talk was held outdoors at the Angle Amphitheater at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens.
@dukeuniversity @FranklinHumanities @DukeGardens1 @FranklinCenterAtDuke @DukeEnglishDept1 @dukeuniversitysdepartmento2485
What does it look like when we intentionally "wild" our gardens to resist homogenizing into a status quo that is far afield of what nature intended? For award-winning African American poet Camille Dungy, it meant not only thinking about how to sustain an ecosystem in her front yard in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, Colorado, but how she connected to the soil as someone whose ancestors were forced to do land labor. Dungy also reflects on what it means to write about connecting with nature akin to authors like Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, and John Muir. In her attempt to diversify the field of nature writing, Dungy eschews these authors' traditions of experiencing nature in solitude, being a Black mother with a young daughter to care for. "Just one guy – so often a guy – with no evidence of family or anyone to worry about but himself," she writes.
The John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Arts, and the Sarah P. Duke Gardens sponsored an evening with the award-winning poet and memoirist Camille Dungy as she read from and discussed her new book, "Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden," published by Simon & Schuster. The event was also co-sponsored by the Department of African and African American Studies and the Department of English at Duke University.
Find her book here: simonandschuster.com/books/Soil/Camille-T-Dungy/9781982195311
The main talk was held outdoors at the Angle Amphitheater at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens.
@dukeuniversity @FranklinHumanities @DukeGardens1 @FranklinCenterAtDuke @DukeEnglishDept1 @dukeuniversitysdepartmento2485
