Author: Camille Dungy

“Fourth Wednesday (Aug. 27)

Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy

This group will meet in person at 6 p.m. in the Raymond Carver Room at the Port Angeles Main Library, 2210 S. Peabody St. Paperback copies are available at that location.

Copies of the selected books in other formats such as large print, audiobook, and eBook may also be available to borrow through the NOLS catalog.

There is no need to register in advance to participate in the discussion groups. To learn more, visit NOLS.org/book-groups, call 360-417-8500 or email discover@nols.org.”

“New poems on love, family, and art from the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden

America, A Love Story is Camille T. Dungy’s powerful testament to living and loving as a Black woman and mother in today’s America, and her first book of poetry in almost a decade. Piercingly honest and deeply compassionate, this poetry moves through the mounting griefs of contemporary American life with unwavering clarity. The book is part indictment, part celebration—full of gratitude, fear, resistance, and hope. Dungy explores intimacy, parenting, racism, history, and the natural world with clarity and depth. Some poems reflect on the past; others respond to the work of contemporary Black artists. Many are formally playful, including a series of 700-character poems inspired by the 700 hours of sleep a mother loses in her child’s first year. Gorgeous, bright, and bold, these poems speak from the edges—between mother and child, body and earth, self and country. They hold tension and tenderness in equal measure, creating a space for love amidst uncertainty.”

Preorder America, A Love Story here.

“I love how Dungy presents the new mothers through two primary metaphors: they are like animals, and they are like houses opened forever to the world. Dungy keeps teasing these metaphors through repetitions and subtle shifts until they collide—those opened houses can no longer keep the natural world out; the mothers can no longer maintain the illusion that they are separate from the natural world. They’re part of nature—which also means aging and death, those unavoidable natural processes—are ahead of them, represented by that image of winter approaching a house emptied and thrown open to the elements.”

Listen and read here.

“For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her new book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden.

In it, she details how her experience trying to diversify the species growing in her yard, in a predominantly white town in Colorado, reflects larger themes of how we talk about land and race in the U.S.

In today’s episode, she tells NPR’s Melissa Block about the journey that gardening put her on, and what it’s revealed about who gets to write about the environment.”

Listen to Camille’s conversation with Melissa Block here.

“Acclaimed author and poet Camille Dungy joins us this week to explore the intersection of nature, identity, and systemic change. With insight from her latest book, SOIL: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, Dungy shares her view of gardening as another form of storytelling. Listen in as we talk about environmental advocacy and stewardship—and the ways nature and narrative are more intertwined than you might think.”

Listen to her episode, “Sowing Change,” here or wherever you get your podcasts!

“On Monday evening, Camille Dungy shot onto stage with a powerful presence that not only commanded the room, but created a relaxed, fun environment.

Hosted by UNO’s Tell All The Truth Project, Writer’s Workshop, College of Arts and Sciences and the English Department’s Creative Nonfiction program, Dungy gave a discussion about craft to students in the afternoon and gave a reading from her collection of work in the evening. 

Dungy is an acclaimed poet and author, currently a professor at CSU and a winner of the Guggenheim fellowship. Her work centers around nature, motherhood, race and human connection.

In her afternoon talk she discussed the elements of craft, as used in her poetry collection, ‘Smith Blue’. She asked students to do a writing prompt and describe a place that is familiar to them using their most prominent of the five senses. After this, Dungy had students do the same exercise while writing about their least prominent sense.”

Keep reading.

Rewatch the event here!

“Camille Dungy, a 1991 alum of Iowa City West High School, has collected a number of prestigious titles and awards through her career: University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Academy of American Poets fellow, Guggenheim fellow, National Endowment for the Arts fellow in prose and poetry, and the American Book Award among them.

The one she received this week was different, though. Not because of the $25,000 prize or the custom M.C. Ginsberg art that comes with it, but because of the full-circle ties it represents to the hometown that built the foundation for her career.”

Read more from The Gazette here!

“This summer, I walked across a quiet Colorado State University campus to meet Professor Camille Dungy at her third-floor office in Eddy Hall. When I arrived, Dungy greeted me warmly and offered to sign a copy of her latest book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. Published in 2023 by Simon & Schuster, and released in paperback this spring, the book is partly a memoir and partly a meditation on the extraordinary significance of our environment. One reviewer described Dungy’s work in part as ‘deeply felt, fluidly written, and never boring.’ Given that Dungy’s home garden features prominently in the narrative, we had discussed having our conversation outdoors, amid the wildflowers, native plants and vegetable garden beds that populate her Fort Collins backyard. An early summer heatwave drove us inside.”

[…]

Read the full interview with Camille here!

A statement from Camille:

“I am deeply honored by this recognition from The Council on Botanical & Horticultural Libraries. And even more honored to learn that SOIL is receiving the 2024 Award of Excellence in Garden and Nature Writing!

One of the things I consider in SOIL is why seeking out and supporting more expansive, interconnected, and diverse representations of the living world might take us a long way toward supporting a more sustainably vibrant planet.

It means the world to me to receive this recognition, for the subject matter and writing of SOIL, from a group dedicated to libraries (one of my great loves!) and botanical and horticultural matters (another great passion!) Truly, I am deeply honored. Thank you!”