Camille Dungy, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden

 

Book Review by Courtenay Willcox

There are many ways to look at Camille Dungy’s book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. You can look at it from the dirt, from her family: a Black family in a mostly white Midwestern town, from the people she encounters because of her gardens, from her writing and its process, from the specific plants she puts into the garden, from bunnies (you have to read the book), and from racism (again, you have to read the book). I was glad to take time to walk through Camille’s gardens, especially her last one. It gives me some hope for mine, which can seem weed-ridden and not nearly enough to fulfill my vision of a riot of color.

For the author, the diversity of her garden is a mirror held up to her community in Fort Collins, CO. She writes in 20-minute daily chunks about how diversity in a garden, in the larger world, and around issues of race and class yields the most robust product, garden, world, and human community. Diversity results in the most long-lasting, robust, strong product that is always in process and never finished.

Her words paint pictures as she writes about her seven-year endeavor to transform her iconic suburban lawn into a diverse, drought-resistant, pollinator's paradise. She brings together horticulture and environmental justice while weaving in race, motherhood, and the exclusion of Black voices from nature writing. The diversity of her garden, the diversity of race, and the diversity of creation are her medium, drawn from the soil and offering the most hope and promise as she and we all work to till and keep our creation.

This is worth your time. After you read it, be prepared to step outside into the dirt to plant or revise your garden, getting rid of some of your lawn in the process.

Courtenay Willcox is a transitional pastor at Northampton Presbyterian Church, Moderator of Presbyterians for Earth Care, and a very grateful Gigi to three remarkable granddaughters.