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She Taught Me the Value and Intelligence of Nature in Writing
An appreciation by one of the many authors Toni Morrison inspired
As soon as I read that Toni Morrison had left this plane, I went straight to my garden for comfort and balm, to take my grief to the Mother Spirits. I didn’t know if Morrison would be there, but I was sure the zinnias were still blooming. The moonflower vines were still reaching for the trellis. The compost pile was still hot in the middle. The tomato plants still bearing. It was right and proper that I headed there. It was Morrison, along with Zora Neale Hurston, who taught me the value and intelligence of nature in writing. In fact, it was through nature that I first encountered and was captivated by this American treasure.
In the ’70s when Morrison’s The Bluest Eye was published, I was a rising newspaper editor in Atlanta. However, as soon as I read the lines:
“Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow. A little examination and much less melancholy would have proved to us that our seeds were not the only ones that did not sprout; nobody’s did.”
I read her novels with a dictionary, thesaurus, and books of African and Greek mythology at hand. I studied them and learned.
I immediately recognized the genius and the teacher in Morrison. I had been looking for a mentor in my mind for some time. In fact, from the moment I created wild stories on the playground of St. Peter Claver Elementary School to entertain my little friends, I had pondered exactly what an African American writer of fiction could be. How did she live, write, improve, date, entertain, make friends, reveal secrets, impart wisdom?
In work after extraordinary work, Morrison explored our humanity and our mortality. I read her novels with a dictionary, thesaurus, and books of African and Greek mythology at hand. I studied them and learned.
Two decades after The Bluest Eye was published, I met Morrison for the first time in the living room of Reynolds Cottage, the residence of the president…
