A Darker Wilderness -

A Darker Wilderness

Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars

Erin Sharkey (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover
240 Seiten
2023
Milkweed Editions (Verlag)
978-1-57131-390-4 (ISBN)
18,65 inkl. MwSt
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2023
A Library Journal Recommended Read for 2023
A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2023

A vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory.



What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere.

Erin Sharkey considers Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac, as she follows the passing of seasons in an urban garden in Buffalo. Naima Penniman reflects on a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal, within her own pursuit of environmental justice. Ama Codjoe meditates on rain, hair, protest, and freedom via a photo of a young woman during a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. And so on—with wide-ranging contributions from Carolyn Finney, Ronald Greer II, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sean Hill, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Glynn Pogue, Katie Robinson, and Lauret Savoy—unearthing evidence of the ways Black people’s relationship to the natural world has persevered through colonialism, slavery, state-sponsored violence, and structurally racist policies like Jim Crow and redlining.

A scrapbook, a family chest, a quilt—and an astounding work of historical engagement and literary accomplishment—A Darker Wilderness is a collection brimming with abundance and insight.

Erin Sharkey is a writer, arts and abolition organizer, cultural worker, and film producer based in Minneapolis. She is the cofounder, with Junauda Petrus, of an experimental arts collective called Free Black Dirt and is the producer of film projects including Sweetness of Wild, an episodic web film project, and Small Business Revolution (Hulu), which explored challenges and opportunities for Black-owned businesses in the Twin Cities in the summer of 2021. Sharkey has received fellowships and residencies from the Loft Mentor Series, VONA/Voices, the Givens Foundation, Coffee House Press, the Bell Museum of Natural History, and the Jerome Foundation. In 2021, Sharkey was awarded the Black Seed Fellowship from Black Visions and the Headwaters Foundation. She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and teaches with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

Foreword

Memory Divine

Carolyn Finney

 

Introduction

Erin Sharkey

 

An Aspect of Freedom

Ama Codjoe

 

A Family Vacation

Glynn Pogue

 

This Land Is My Land

Sean Hill

 

Confronting the Names on This Land

Lauret Savoy

 

An Urban Farmer’s Almanac

A Twenty-First-Century Reflection on Benjamin Banneker’s Almanacs and Other Astronomical Phenomena

Erin Sharkey

 

Magic Alley

Ronald L. Greer II

 

Concentric Memory: 

Re-membering Our Way into the Future

Naima Penniman

 

There Was a Tremendous Softness

Michael Kleber-Diggs

 

Water and Stone

A Ceremony for Audre Lorde in Three Parts

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

 

Here’s How I Let Them Come Close

katie robinson

 

About the Contributors XX

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo Illustrations
Verlagsort Minneapolis
Sprache englisch
Maße 165 x 215 mm
Themenwelt Literatur Anthologien
Sachbuch/Ratgeber Natur / Technik Natur / Ökologie
ISBN-10 1-57131-390-7 / 1571313907
ISBN-13 978-1-57131-390-4 / 9781571313904
Zustand Neuware
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