A Book Preview about Ecology, Justice, and the South 🌿
Dear Reader,
I'm so excited to share with you a preview of a book excerpt of Devoured: The Extraordinary Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Ate the South by Ayurella Horn-Muller. As one of my favorite environmental journalists of color, Ayurella's complicated story of the South's fickle relationship with kudzu, intertwined with her own complicated story with the South, really resonated with me!
Read the rest of the excerpt here. Let us know your thoughts!
Yours sincerely,
Alex Ip, Editor-in-Chief, The Xylom
Lush fields unfold under a midday sun, emerald hues glinting off blades of bermudagrass.
A swarm of dragonflies ascends into unhurried clouds, indiscernible wings moving back and forth in a mechanical dance, armed with needlelike precision. I step forward with false bravado, watching a damp carpet of soil cushion my foot. In and out my breath stutters as I force myself to move, my tunnel-Âvision sight trained on a thicket of trees a couple hundred yards ahead. Old bottles and faded pieces of trash litter the ground I walk upon, evidence of the humans who continue to invade this ecosystem flashing in my peripheral view.
My destination is a plot of oaks, an untamed haven bordering a nature reserve and a bustling freeway, just outside of Athens, Georgia. Woven within the wild expanse of greenery is a timeless relic, a bewildering being enshrouded in over a century of magic and mystery.
Here will mark my first up-Âclose encounter with kudzu — a bristly, leafy vine famed in the American South for its propensity to smother other plants at an unparalleled pace. Its lasting influence on popular culture can be traced back to the twentieth century. Ever since, the “vine that ate the South” has been immortalized in poems, books, movies, and nursery rhymes.
Where I grew up, swaths of kudzu reigned supreme. Driving along any number of interstates in Florida meant witnessing an overabundance of the perennial weed, found everywhere from Tallahassee to Miami, draped languidly over trees dotted along roadways, open fields, and abandoned buildings. As familiar and forgettable as a palm frond, kudzu is as synonymous with the South as Spanish moss—Âthe only other plant commonly spotted enveloping everything from train tracks to powerlines. But I was never drawn to Spanish moss — Âanother aesthetically compelling invasive — the same way I gravitated toward kudzu and its towering leafy palaces.
Perhaps it was personal. While I was raised to live in fear of the unmapped plots of nature’s playground, what struck me about the proverbial vine was the story embedded within it. For years, the plant has danced under an American limelight, as a sweeping fixture of southern culture. What drew me to kudzu was the way it was humanized — Âhow one prodigious little vine morphed into a daunting creature that eventually ate an entire geographic region. An influence that has withstood the test of time.
I began to wonder: How could we ascribe such fantastical qualities to one weed? Could this noteworthy shift in cultural perception have something to do with the plant’s distant origins? And what might this say about the American relationship with racial and ethnic diversity, with this country’s condemnation of plants — Âand people — with roots from elsewhere?
Perhaps that dichotomy is what first truly attracted me to the narrative of a noxious weed. After all, kudzu’s war with cultural perception in the States is something I identify with.
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A SOUTHERN FLAIR
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