Madder: A Memoir in Weeds

by Marco Wilkinson

Madder, matter, mater— a weed, a state of mind, a material, a meaning, a mother. Essayist and horticulturist Marco Wilkinson searches for the roots of his own selfhood among family myths and memories. “My life, these weeds.” Marco Wilkinson uses his deep knowledge of undervalued plants, mainly weeds—invisible yet ubiquitous, unwanted yet abundant, out-of-place yet flourishing—as both structure and metaphor in these intimate vignettes. Madder combines poetic meditations on nature, immigration, queer sensuality, and willful forgetting with recollections of Wilkinson’s Rhode Island childhood and glimpses of his maternal family’s life in Uruguay. The son of a fierce, hard-working mother who tried to erase even the memory of his absent father from their lives, Wilkinson investigates his heritage with a mixture of anger and empathy as he wrestles with the ambiguity of his own history. Using a verdant iconography rich with wordplay and symbolism, Wilkinson offers a mesmerizing portrait of cultivating belonging in an uprooted world.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Poetry, Nature, Queer, LGBT, Biography

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2021

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

 Real Rating: 3.75* of five, rounded up because it's so lovely

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It's one of the wonderful things about reading memoirs that, as we voyeuristically peer into the writer's personal life, we also learn, experience anew or for the first time, that special glory of Life that Author Wilkinson describes thus: "Finally the freedom of being, not being seen." It's a genuine pleasure that the genre has in greater abundance than most all the books I read in so many other genres. Marco has led a really surprising life, son of a single Uruguayan mother whose character clearly formed his observant, detail-oriented self as well as the art he can't help but produce.

This is a seriously poetic tale of being queer (as we now say) among people who aren't supportive of you. This is a sad tale of being sure there's something wrong with the way the world treats you, the way it talks about you, and not being in touch with any strand of culture that supports the sense you have of yourself. This is the reason the hate-filled rejecters of life's Others want to remove the books and censor the art that includes people they don't like. If you're not one of those people, and—importantly—if you like poetry and/or poetical prose, read this wonderful story of a man coming to accept and shape his sense of himself via the metaphorical garden with its weeds that he's built of and for himself. It's a lovely trip.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marco Wilkinson's Madder is an earnest and poetic reflection on parents and children, presence and absence.

Wilkinson's mother worked 12-hour days in Uruguay and then in the United States to provide for her son. Meanwhile, Marco never met his father, a man who insisted his mother get an abortion and who disappeared when she refused. Wilkinson spent much of his life wondering who this one-half donor of his genes was while also dealing with a mother who insisted on being ever present in his life - in college, in adulthood, and beyond. What Wilkinson discovers are numerous father figures, a love for his mother, and life that at one point felt empty but now feels full and lively.

Wilkinson is a naturalist and his writing engages with the plants he has spent much of his life farming and foraging. And his prose in Madder is truly beautiful and such a pleasure to read. But other portions of this book rely too heavily on poetry and plays-on-form that do not seem to add to the story being told; I am just not sure what benefit these stanzas provide. Wilkinson, though, is a beautiful writer, and one I will certainly read again.

[Penny Guisinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves all the accolades it's already received from writers like Paul Lisicky and Lia Purpura as well as the glowing reviews in Kirkus, etc. I've followed Marco Wilkinson's career for some time, and am thrilled to see Madder out in the world. Wilkinson puts his knowledge about plants to work here in very innovative, effective ways and creates a tangle of story that renders the tangle of his life with precision, emotion, and meaning. This exploration of the plants we think we don't want -- weeds -- exquisitely mirrors this writer's quest for understanding about his lineage. This is a book written with great reverence for nature, for family, for place, and for the importance of understanding one's own sexual identity. Matter is a triumph of both prose and poetry and where the two can meet to become one.

[ibg · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Looking for the unseen just means looking for the things you do not want to see: the things that web your chosen world, that wed you to what you choose (or have had chosen for you) to forget" (66)

Catch me in the woods because all of a sudden I'm a forager?! So taken and inspired by Wilkinson's queer ecology -- tbh I'm ready for another book.

[Nic Rueth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A formally and metaphorically inventive memoir. Would recommend!

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrical, experimental, ceaselessly feeling. Without question, a new favorite.

[Mark Dickey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the biting fragrance of mint- sharpest when fresh - bedstraw, madder, sweet woodruff, and their kin only come into their own when dead. They dry to gold, releasing the soft smell of fresh-mown hay so characteristic of coumarin, the compound they share in common.

Our Lady’s Bedstraw, from the legend that this was the plant that formed the bedding in Christ’s cradle

Why would you lay the slick, purple, mewling body of a newborn against those rough stems, with their back-curved spines and leaves covered in prickling hairs? This herb that ladders its way up to the sky with its million tiny barbs, each prick a step closer to heaven. She softly uncradles him, lays his head down against the wilting greenery. In an instant a profusion of golden flowers springs from the golden stems and fragrant clouds of incense fill the air. Little boy, still uncircumcised and uncovenanted, scratched by the bed you lie down in, already reaching up for a father.

————————————————-

When I die I want (though I will be past wanting) to be buried without a casket or shroud, naked, completely unadorned, and have a fruit tree planted above me (above that which is not me), so that its roots might plunge hungry into my (not) stomach, curious into (not) my brain, desirous into (not) my pelvis, thirst into (not) my mouth

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went to a panel of this author’s at the 2024 AWP Conference and Bookfair in Kansas City. My memory is a little fudged but the panel had something to do with the hybridity of nonfiction, and the panel was so interesting. Wilkinson had shared a portion of his memoir with us and I remember those few pages he shared really stuck with me so I decided to get his book and read it. It was different than memoirs that I’m used to, but I don’t think that necessarily went against him. His story felt both sad and profound, even intriguing (though it feels kind of weird saying that because it’s somebody’s life), but there was just so much on these pages that I felt emotionally and I love the unconventional structure of it. There’s so much lyricism to the prose and it felt like there were sections that I don’t know if he would classify as poetry, but read like poetry to me. Everything was just really well put together. I would definitely give this a read.

[Barton Smock · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Marco Wilkinson’s 'Madder', I’m sure age comes and goes but am not sure of the order or if there is an order. What embedded lyricism, what tended questioning. Among ahistoric ghosts, beneath cobwebs of unspun data in the garden of the historian, and in the slow hair of earth’s spidery dream, language here becomes a secret that tells itself and touch plants touch where it can taste its own exile. Origin, here, is folded in the thrice-ness of memory, movement, and mimicry. Trying to be the only thing in the world means one is close to being the last. Skin is made of stillness. Pictures die in the taking. Place comes from person. Sound has no father, but fathers proximity. This is a work that listens, leaves, and lifts. That corners nearness to give it space.

[Andrea Stoeckel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is really angry. When I got it, it looked pretty good, but read the table of contents and you will soon see the weeds of his life, his family and history and genealogy just made me….uncomfortable and sad.

[disclaimer: I received this book from an outside source and voluntarily read and reviewed it]

[Amie Whittemore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very intriguing hybrid/genre-pushing memoir about a boy, turned man, who seeks but also seeks release from his unknown father. Told in lyrical prose, using evocative formal structures, this is a beautiful memoir. Definitely recommend if you're into plants and queerness and identity and family and the place(s) and histories that shape us.

[AB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully lyrical. I lost the thread of things at times as I was swept up in the beauty of his poetry, his sentences. But I still loved it and feel it is the kind of book that merits a second, closer, slower read.

[Austin Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sumptuous and meandering. More poetry than prose, which results in a product more atmospheric ambience than structured substance.

[JJ W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant botanically themed personal revelations

[Anna Katherine Kelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

For Class.
There was just too much going on and I felt stupid the whole time.

[tillie lefforge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the Fathers, Figured section. The rest of this was just not my cup of tea!

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. Read my review here: https://booksandbakes.substack.com/p/...