The Medicine Woods is a graceful and soul-stirring meditation on how our planet’s future lies in the ability to embrace the oneness of life and practice nonviolence toward each other, the trees, the seas, and all beings. In this second collection of awe-inspiring poetry, Danita Dodson uplifts the ecological stewardship that obliges us to seek healing in its many forms—to walk in the woods, to cure waters, to return the soil to its original state of health, to mend broken hearts and minds, to give justice to the oppressed. With perceptive musicality and stunning natural imagery, the poet offers the spirit of what her grandmother sought when she ventured into the East Tennessee woods to find medicinal plants to heal her family—poems that carry an imaginative ethnobotanical essence as they distill curative words in this time of climate change and escalating violence. Uniting the natural and the divine, and connecting the hills of Appalachia with the planetary landscape, Dodson’s mystical verses exemplify the wisdom of a poet with a love of place, illuminating the deep connection to the land that underlies the desire to love it, to protect it, and to listen to its stories.
Poetry/ Local