“A Dangerous Ornamental” in Coffee House Press’s Writers Project

Foraging for weeds, filing for unemployment— “A Dangerous Ornamental” for Coffee House Press’s Writers Project is the start of a longer project looking at capitalism and weeds. Here I come up with “an economy of the weed, of the rhizome, of the taproot, of the wind pollination, of the bisexual plants that can choose what they need, and of the way I am enmeshed in the plants and see in them a lens on capitalism and colonialism. The plant itself is a palimpsest that collapses those histories. It’s a philosophy of the disturbed earth and waste places and cracks in the pavement.” I’m grateful to Coffee House (whose books I love with an unbridled passion) and for their support of writers in the pandemic.