Camille Dungy On Nature, Motherhood & Environmental Justice

Camille Dungy is the author of four poetry collections. Among many awards, her book Suck on the Marrow won the American Book Award, while her most recent volume, Trophic Cascade, won the Colorado Book Award. Her groundbreaking Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry helped change the way environmental poetry is conceived. A professor at Colorado State University, Dungy’s poems blend nature, motherhood, and environmental justice, among many themes.

Poetry & Planet is produced by Ethan Goffman. Emily Dickinson’s “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church” and Lucille Clifton’s “generations” are read by R. Michael Oliver. Musical excerpts from “Elements of Life” and “Earth Revisited” are written and performed by Reginald Cyntje, with vocals by Christie Dashiell. Aural interludes are by Douglas Harvey.

The opening poetry chorus is voiced by Jomo K. Johnson, Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram, Marianne Szlyk, and R. Michael Oliver.

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Lucille Clifton’s “generations” is from Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.