JUSTICE FREEDOM HERBS is a book of activist poems written in garden metaphors. It is also a book of garden poems that suggest social justice themes. Sometimes the garden, its herbs and other produce, are foregrounded; sometimes civil rights issues and experiences take that primary role. Throughout the volume, the two concerns are closely linked, and each becomes a way of talking about the other. Both require nurturing, both sometimes disappoint and frustrate, both are sources of gratification, growth, and healing. The mostly free verse poems in this book conjure up family, the poet's personal past, and larger issues of history, all within the framework of one woman's close and empathetic skill of observation."