Poison Garden: A collaborative publication exploring the presence & myth of powerful plants
Poison Garden issue #1: Purpose of Poison has arrived
For the Poison Garden’s first undertaking, we've explored the idea of poison itself
What we found is that the purpose of poison depends on who is centered in its story
It's a complex topic that changes with each shift in perspective. And it takes on many roles as ritual, as decay, as preservative, as heritage, as psychedelic, as environmental language. We’ve looked at poison in the hands of humans, within the landscapes that surround us, and even deep in the collections of a museum. We've seen how the very poison that can take a life is also the same one that can heal.
Learn more about
the Poison Garden
The Poison Garden is for sharing experiences grown from powerful plants
Personal journeys are incredible, but there is magic that happens when we allow these plants to build community through different voices. Collaborating is where myths are born, where we can overlap our stories to deepen our own relationships with the plants and each other.
These are the plants once held as sacred by humans and immortalized in art and story, but now the attention given to them is negative or fearful.
It is time to remediate their reputation and strengthen the community of people who appreciate the depth that poison plants offer. And we need your help to do it.
THIS PROJECT IS ABOUT COMMUNAL WORLD BUILDING - SO THE LOGISTIC MODEL IS, TOO
The Poison Garden operates as a co-op periodical, meaning all profits (after print costs) are equally divided and paid to contributors.
Everything goes directly to the writers, artists, and editors that pour their hearts into this publication.
And because ethics are clearly important to us, all of our issues are printed in the USA by an employee owned carbon-neutral company.
Issues are released quarterly. The next Call for Entries will open in Summer 2025.
Poison Garden Discord Server
Keep the conversation going in between issues by joining us in Discord
Talk about poison plants, gardening, animism, art, and more - and get a sneak peek into everything that happens behind the scenes of our periodical
Our first event will be a poison show-and-tell on March 18, 2025. We'd love you to join!
Peek into our 2025 Issues
The purpose of poison depends on who is centered in its story. This issue explores many different perspectives on poison plants' role as medicine, weapon, celebration, and balm for grief. It is time to understand the full impact that these plants have on our lives and to hold the complex realities they can create.
Meet the Editors
Charlie Flatt is a writer and editor living his dream on a small farm in Southwest France.
Ryn Fink is a bog creature who sometimes shapeshifts as a creative, in service of our collective remembering and rerooting. When they're not tending their own poison garden, you can sometimes find them on IG. @ryn.fink | rynfink.substack.com
Mila Roeder is a writer and animist with a passion for traversing the unknown. @spiritdirt | milaroeder.com
Meet the Contributors
Sini Björklund is an avid reader and an amateur gardener who records her reading life and garden allotment adventures on Instagram. @sinisstories
Sara Breakfield runs Twig and Snip, which fosters a unique relationship with the natural world through flowers. You’ll often find her creating dried flower bouquets, hand woven nests, dried leaf garlands, Spirit Medicine bundles, tiny wreaths, and more. She works with her small garden patch at home to grow flowers and herbs for drying but the majority of her time is spent foraging in the Pacific Northwest.@twigandsnip | twigandsnip.com
Mack Budd is an artisan, gardener, and educator living in the North East. They work primarily in printmaking and letterpress, creating work that honors the Natural world and explores the myriad of relationships we have with botanicals. mackbudd.com
Liz Byrde is a hobbit who practices Therapeutic Horticulture at the local botanical garden. She/they is a devotee of the Ranunculaceae family (the holy family of the sacred buttercup). Her/their favorite things are tea, knitting, and Kung Fu. And flowers, obviously.
Rose dè Danann is a writer and artist living off grid on the Oregon Coast. @cascadiarose | wyrdwood.substack.com
Elaina Foley is a writer, dancer, and herbalist currently living in Berlin, Germany. There (and elsewhere), Elaina researches material culture and its (de)composition within natural history collections– with an eye towards how ecological transformation affects bodies and politics. @laineyy.grace | elainafoley.mmm.page
Taylor Fourt is a green-thumbed artist with dirt under her fingernails. Her gouache works illustrate regenerative agriculture systems, plants, people, and more. She creates visual guides on farming techniques by day, and organizes folks in her local horticultural community by night. In all places in life, she aims to cultivate positive feedback loops. @t.fourt | taylorfourt.com
Dajana Heremic (she/her) is an artist, mother, teacher & student of the wild, living from a deeply animistic experience of the world – this is true anarchy! In exploring (pre)history & reclaiming the cyclical & dark of (our) nature she's holding space for Re-membering. Through visual and magical arts & rewilding, she is weaving biocentrism, ecofeminism, ceremony, wildlife & earth skills, folklore, shadow work and hedge riding into daily life. As a refugee of war, the Kinship with the other-than-human world has deepened her sense of belonging and the radical meaning of home since her childhood. @dajanaheremic | dajanaheremic.com
Bitter Kalli is a writer and plant grower whose work engages with labor histories, Black visual culture, and multispecies kinship. They are a child of the Atlantic Ocean. @weathering._ |
Katie Kaplan is a multi-disciplinary visual artist whose work investigates the natural world as a connective medium between spiritual and activist practices. @pennysmasher | katiekaplanstudio.com
Tess Pugsley
Neha Savant is a dancer, writer, urban wildlife ecologist and settler with roots in Bharat (India), now living and loving within Lenapehoking, lands and waters of the Eastern Woodland traditions (Queens, NYC). Her trans-disciplinary art and science is currently grounded in maintaining the enabling conditions for biodiversity, relational difference, and pluralism to thrive. And she’s obsessed with boundary crossers like amphibians! @nehasavant | cityfrog.substack.com
Parker Thorn is a queer autistic writer and tarot reader. They love oat milk lattes and horror stories. @parkerjthorn
Since 2012, Jamie Whittaker and Janine Violini have been involved in the world of death. They offer an educational program called Crows in a Row, focusing on grief and death literacy along with rituals for endings. They are grateful to have the privilege of learning from the dying and the bereaved. @crows_in_a_row | crowsinarow.com
Lieu Wolfe is an artist, musician, herbalist and explorer creating beauty and magic in the Pacific Northwest. @hekatesarmory | @Lieuthierielle
Belladonna has such a rich history and presence. It has been used as medicine, in cosmetics, for death, it has appeared in mythology and folklore with associations to several deities and archetypes. It is the perfect example of how complex the relationship between humans and powerful plants has been - and the soil is still fertile for new stories to grow.
Meet the Editors
Mila Roeder is a writer and animist with a passion for traversing the unknown. @spiritdirt | milaroeder.com
Nikki Martin is a certified Deep Listening™ facilitator and received her death educator certification through IDLM. She completed bioregional herbalism programs with the Elderberry School of Botanical Medicine in Portland, OR and plant journey work with Kathryn Solie of Persephone's Path. She continues her ethnobotanical folklore studies with Occvlta, spiritual mentors and is a regular attendee of the Viridis Genii Symposium. With a background in immersive environmental sound, advocacy, production and printing work, she seeks to weave her varied experiences into infrastructures that support fully-embodied practices and ways of relating with our kin in the natural world.
Meet the Contributors
Coming soon
As one of the first poison plants that outdoor enthusiasts learn, poison ivy is another introductory ally. There are many facets to speak about with this unique plant: its boundary holding, its vining, its topical nature. It also brings up questions of perspective with who is centered in its story, since it both harms people and helps the ecosystem with the same poison.
Meet the Editors
M. Hazel Andrews Holmes, PhD is a botanist, forest ecologist, adjunct professor, and occasional folk artist currently living in North Braddock, Pennsylvania, USA. She is especially interested in the ways plant communities develop in response to past land use, parasitic plants, and post-industrial ecology. @skunk_cabbage_swamp | Google Scholar
Mila Roeder is a writer and animist with a passion for traversing the unknown. @spiritdirt | milaroeder.com
Maria Seda-Reeder is a writer and curator who has been supporting the work of contemporary visual artists for over two decades. She believes in the power of words to re-imagine collective possibilities for the future, and that art has the capacity to reflect the current moment—which is always in the process of being co-created.
Meet the Contributors
Coming soon
Frequently asked questions
You can submit nearly anything that speaks to your relationship with the particular plant or theme that an issue is focused on. Some ideas are: original art, writing, dream documentation, personal research projects, photographs of your garden. Get as creative or weird as you want! You do not need any formal training or background to share your work.
There is no limit to what you can submit. We print in full color.
Pieces must be suitable for print format and must not violate any copyrights. We are not interested in pieces that promote discrimination.
For legal reasons, we cannot publish anything that encourages ingesting these plants. If you submit a piece about working with a plant hands-on, please include a thorough safety disclaimer.
There are no submission fees or costs to apply or be in the Poison Garden.
While we prioritize original work, we are open to accepting work previously posted on social media or personal newsletters.
We have to decline if it is already in another publication - that makes copyrights complicated.
The next open call for entries will be in Summer 2025.