Camille T. Dungy | Characteristics of Life
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we spotlight American poet and professor, Camille T. Dungy. Included in this episode is a reading of her poem "Characteristics of Life."
Addressing the paucity of African American poets in anthologies of nature poetry, Dungy stated in a 2010 interview for the Oakland Tribune, \\u201cI miss seeing writers of color in the conversation. Until we have greater variety in the conversation, it is not a conversation\\u2014it is a monologue.\\u201d To that end, Dungy edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), which won a Northern California Book Award and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She was also co-editor of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (2009), and assistant editor for Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem\\u2019s First Decade (2006). Dungy's most recent work includes the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History (2017).\\xa0