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Plant Daddy
Renée Rigdon
Accents Publishing is proud to present Plant Daddy, Renée Rigdon's debut poetry collection. Vulnerability, strength and introspection interlink in the singular voice of this book and the poems in it sing of growth through a journey of acceptance and change.
What Others Say About Plant Daddy
Rigdon's Plant Daddy, like the flora it venerates, is alive in generative possibilities. Each poem creates new worlds in strange and small places—places that break us, that make us whole, that bring us together until our roots intertwine. You will relish this collection and its love for sounds, for color, for life, for memory and love evoked and turned into a natural resistance, no need for chemicals.
—Willie Carver, author of Gay Poems for Red States
With dazzling language, the poems in Plant Daddy are rooted in a rich soil that allows for a profoundly revealing exploration of identity, grief, mental illness, and addiction. Rigdon knows "there is a power in the naming of things," and that "Every Last One Wants / to be known." Throughout its five discreet yet connected sections, we see a journey of personal growth mirrored in the plants so fiercely described. Just as we inhabit our own bodies, each plant lives alone in its own container while remaining connected to the home and the people who live there and reaches always out toward the light. We learn what it means to embrace one's nonbinary and trans identity in a world that, if it cannot erase your existence, will enact laws to do just that. At times, the poems in Plant Daddy reminded me, in the best way possible, of how I felt when I first read Theodore Roethke's greenhouse poems in The Lost Son, one of my favorite poetry sequences. Read Plant Daddy if you want a guidebook from someone who has experienced the "sudden and momentary relief of / meeting / myself," while learning to thrive just as they are, and remember, "No one is lost. / No one is ever lost." and we all "deserve more than" our "heart gives permission to ask—"
—Avery Guess, author of The Truth Is
Renée Rigdon writes like a hedge witch. Plant Daddy is the kind of collection that upon reading the first poem makes you want to put your hands in some soil and take a long, healing breath. I highly recommend this gorgeous, meditative, and grounding collection.
—Claudia Love Mair, author of Mourning Pages, Coordinator of the Carnegie Center's Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative
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Trailhead of a Parallel World
In some universe, somewhere
we can be anything.
So I am a path through these woods
&You,
you are the signs marked
into that path
We are guiding the hikers
and the travelers
the families and the loners
together
the sunlight dances across our features
warm
No one is lost.
No one is ever lost.
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Details and Ordering
Publication Date: February 15, 2025
Format: Softcover, 6" x 9"
ISBN: 978-1-961127-13-5
Price: $19.00
About the Author
Renée Rigdon is a widowed, sober, nonbinary writer, artist, creativity instructor, and weirdo-about-town. They love blending the humor and tragedy of life into a milkshake of magic and hope. Their work reflects a deep connection to nature, the difficulties of being a human, and the aches and absurdities of everyday life.
In addition to poetry, Renée coauthored The AntiCraft: Knitting, Beading, and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister with the spectacularly talented Zabet Stewart.
When they are not writing, creating, or advocating for the importance of creativity for grown-ups, Renée fills their time with cat snuggles, jigsaw puzzles, and a good porch sit. They live in Lexington, Kentucky, with their awesome son and two absolutely precious perfect tortie cats.
Find Renée on reneerigdon.com.
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