New Book: Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry

I don't know enough of Camille Dungy's work. So reading this review about a new anthology of poems she is Editor of, entitled Black nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, was a good thing, because it tells me I need to catch up on her material.

I will be getting this anthology. As soon as I read the first line of the review, which says Dungy believes blacks and whites look at nature differently, I knew this anthology would be something I'd be getting.

It features poems by black poets about nature. As the reviewer notes, Dungy sees blacks and whites as having conflicting responses to nature. Whites revel in its beauty, celebrate its wonder. Blacks see nature more ominously and critically, connoting a history of plight and hardship.

This is a topic that interests me: the black response to nature. Of course, after eight years of majoring in English in college, you get sucked in the cyclical dialogue about the Romantic perspective of nature: Nature is beautiful. Nature is refuge. Nature is the wellspring of the imagination. Nature is the aesthetic standard. Nature is to be cherished. Nature is where you're most yourself. Nature is where you find your peace and inner-person, etc. We frequently, if not exclusively, see the light side of nature (pun intended) and that light side represents the tenets by which we define a canon.

I'm looking forward to getting this anthology to see the conflicts and complexities nature, in another light, summons within those speakers.

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