Mixed Messages Extra: Read an extract from A Wilder Way

A sneak peek at Poppy Okotcha's debut book and a reflection on her modelling career

Hi, welcome to Mixed Messages Extra! This week, we’re giving you an extract from Poppy Okotcha’s debut book, A Wilder Way.

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This week, grower, former model and author Poppy Okotcha spoke about her mixed-Nigerian heritage, sharing her thoughts on colour, culture, folklore, and palatability politics.

We also spoke about A Wilder Way, a memoir of a relationship with an ever-changing garden, of setting down roots and becoming embedded in nature, and of how tending to a patch of land will not only grow us as individuals, but can also help to grow a better world.

I didn’t set out for the book to be so much of an exploration of my mixed-race experience. It was quite an emotional process, I grappled with a lot of questions that I've had my whole life and I’ve learned a lot.

This book is a beautiful read, packed with tips for sowing and growing, guides to wild ingredients and delicious seasonal recipes, and I’m excited to be bringing you a sneak peek. In the extract, Poppy recalls the tipping point of understanding her complicity in environmental damage, capitalism, exploitation and injustice through her work as a model, and how her body – and hair – were used as a faux-political act.

Read an extract from A Wilder Way