Tending the Vines: Black Abundance in Eight Plants - Hardcover

by Ashia S. Ajani (Author)

This standout creative nonfiction debut explores the lives and histories of plants considered nonnative or invasive as metaphors for the Black experience in America.

In Tending the Vines, Ashia S. Ajani illuminates how eight unique plants tell the story of the Black diaspora in America. Each chapter is a deep dive into one plant--including eucalyptus, passionflower, wild mustard, and kudzu--exploring their significance in African tradition, their role through the Middle Passage and Chattel Slavery, and their enduring importance in modern households and communities.

Tending the Vines unpacks the complex rhetorical lives of these plants, most of which have been used as both ugly metaphors for Black incursion as well as powerful symbols for Black liberation. It also highlights the ethnobotanical uses that have sustained displaced populations for centuries. Throughout, Ajani complicates our notions of "invasive" and belonging, by contextualizing how plants move, are moved, and, of course, move us.

Author Biography

Ashia S. Ajani is a storyteller and environmental educator born and raised in Denver, CO, unceded territory of the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Their work has appeared in Sierra Magazine, Orion Magazine, Callaloo Literary Journal, and Atmos Literary Magazine, among others. Heirloom (Write Bloody Publishing, 2023) was their debut poetry collection.