Includes bibliographical references.

Preface : to know where I'm going -- Kentucky is my fate -- Moved by mountains -- Touching the earth -- Reclamation and reconciliation -- To be whole and holy -- Again : segregation must end -- Representations of whiteness in the black imagination -- Drive through tobacco -- Earthbound : on solid ground -- An aesthetics of blackness : strange and oppositional -- Inspired eccentricity -- A place where the soul can rest -- Aesthetic inheritances : history worked by hand -- Piecing it all together -- On being a Kentucky writer -- Returning to the wound -- Healing talk : a conversation -- Take back the night : remake the present -- Habits of the heart -- A community of care.

What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? How do we create community? When can we say that we truly belong? The issues of place and belonging are the subject of this book. Moving from past to present, the author charts a journey in which she moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began in her native place, Kentucky. She explores a geography of the heart, focusing on issues of homeplace, of land, and land stewardship, linking the issues to global environmentalism and sustainability. She writes about family and the ties that bind. And she focuses on the experience of black farmers, past and present who celebrate local organic food production. This work offers a vision of a world where all people, wherever they call home, can live fully and well, and where everyone can belong.