“Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves.” A Poem by J. Drew Lanham
This Week from the Emergence Magazine Podcast
Emergence Magazine is a quarterly online publication exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the Earth, we look to emerging stories. Each issue explores a theme through innovative digital media, as well as the written and spoken word. The Emergence Magazine podcast features exclusive interviews, narrated essays, stories, and more.
J. Drew Lanham is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist. He is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature. In this powerful reading, Drew recites his poem “Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves,” a celebration of the radical act of joy through lifting up liberation, reparations, justice, and deep connection to ancestors and the living world.
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J. Drew Lanham is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist. He is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. His essays and poetry can be found in Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in the anthologies The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. He is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University.
Diana Ejaita is a multidisciplinary Italian-Nigerian artist based in Berlin. She pays homage to her West African and European lineages through a style that weaves symbolism into narrative pattern and texture. Diana’s illustrations have been featured in numerous international publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vogue, and The Economist.
