Madder

Book excerpt: Madder, matter, mater--a weed, a state of mind, a material, a meaning, a mother. Poet and horticulturist Marco Wilkinson searches for the roots of myths and memories among plant families and family trees. "My life, these weeds." Marco Wilkinson's intimate vignettes of intergenerational migration, queer sexuality, and willful forgetting use the language of plants as both structure and metaphor--particularly weeds: invisible yet ubiquitous, unwanted yet abundant, out-of-place yet flourishing. Madder combines meditations on nature with memories of Wilkinson's Rhode Island childhood and glimpses of his maternal family's life in Uruguay. The son of a fierce immigrant mother who tried to erase his absent father from their lives, Wilkinson investigates his heritage with a mixture of anger and empathy as he wrestles with the ambiguity of the past. Using a verdant iconography rich with wordplay and symbolism, Wilkinsonoffers a mesmerizing portrait of finding belonging in an uprooted world.