CAMILLE DUNGY'S WILD SOUL STORY

Camille Dungy is a poet and professor and author of three collections of poetry: Smith Blue, Suck on the Marrow, and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison. She is also editor of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry. Her remarkable story takes place in the chaparral of Southern California when she is a very young child. In love with this vast and open landscape of prickly pear cactus, rocks, caves, and spiders, she learns to navigate its rewards and dangers, even as she feels its loss through encroachment by houses and roads. Her story is the story of all of us who have loved places and lost them, while never losing our willingness to remain open to nature's beauty. To find out more about Camille Dungy and her remarkable work, please visit her website.