AncesTREE

Join Dr. Lindsay Gary and the Houston Botanic Garden for an evening of art, nature, and poetry, as Dr. Gary discusses her newest book, AncesTREE. The author will share insights into her evocative collection of poems inspired by trees, the natural world, and ancestral connections, accompanied by beautiful watercolor illustrations by local artist Ashley Lilly. The program will consist of a social mix-and-mingle, a moderated discussion, a poetry reading, and an audience Q+A.

Non-member ticket price: $25
Member ticket price: $10

Houston Botanic Garden offers free parking for author talks.

A book signing will follow the program, and a limited number of books will be available for purchase. You may also purchase your own copy of the book in advance:

• Hardcover: https://tinyurl.com/AncesTREEHardcover
• Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/AncesTREEPaperback

About the Book:
AncesTREE is a book of poetry by Dr. Lindsay Gary that traces her ancestral connections through trees and their roots—both metaphorical and physical—across Africa and its global Diaspora. Through intimate, place-based poems, Gary explores memory, land, lineage, and environmental reverence, positioning trees as living witnesses to African and Diasporic histories.

Each poem is dedicated to a specific tree and reflects Gary’s personal and ancestral relationship to a particular region, including the U.S. South, the Caribbean and Latin America, and the African continent. Organized into three sections—The South, The Diaspora, and The Continent—the book moves between Houston and South Louisiana and the greater Gulf Coast, across the Americas, and throughout Africa, revealing interconnected histories shaped by remembrance, resistance, and return.

AncesTREE is illustrated by watercolor artist Ashley Lilly, whose original paintings accompany each poem and deepen the book’s meditation on nature, culture, and memory. Together, the poems and illustrations emphasize long-standing African traditions that understand land and environment as sacred and ancestral.

About the Author:
Dr. Lindsay Gary (PhD, MFA, MA, eMPA) is an award-winning professor-scholar, conceptual diasporArtist, Afrocentric entrepreneur, and cultural curator and critic, whose mission is to educate, connect, and empower the African Diaspora.

A modern-day djali (griot), she embodies the roles of cultural disruptor, visionary thought leader, and legacy worker, committed to uplifting Afrocentric knowledge systems and reimagining the future through culture, care, and critique. Her work is ancestrally powered, rooted in Black memory, and deeply inspired by African spirituality, cosmology, and epistemology.