Wind, Trees
John Freeman
(Author)
Description
A politically urgent yet timeless collection that studiesthe devastating failings of humanity and the redemptive possibilities of love.In Wind, Trees, John Freeman presents a meditation on
power and loss, change and adaptation. What can the trees teach us about
inhabiting space together? What might we gain if we admit we do not control the
wind, and cannot possibly carry all we've been handed? Offering a stark moral critique
of pandemic self-preservation--as "justifications grew / with greed like vines /
up the side of a tree / taking everything"--Wind, Trees joins the ranks
of politically urgent yet timeless collections like The Lice by W.S.
Merwin. Through narrative lyric and metaphysical pulse, meandering thought and
punctuating quiet, Freeman studies the devastating failings of humanity and the
redemptive possibilities of love.
Product Details
Price
$17.00
$15.81
Publisher
Copper Canyon Press
Publish Date
October 25, 2022
Pages
96
Dimensions
5.8 X 8.8 X 0.1 inches | 0.45 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781556596483
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
John Freeman is the author of Dictionary of the Undoing several other books, including The Park (Copper Canyon, 2020), and There's a Revolution Outside My Life (2021), co-edited with Tracy K Smith. The founder of the literary annual Freeman's, he is an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His latest books are The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story (Penguin, 2021), and The Wind, Trees (Copper Canyon, 2022), a collection of poems. His work has been translated into over twenty languages.
Reviews
Praise for Wind, Trees"When you pick up . . . John Freeman's gentle, wise poetry collection Wind, Trees you'll see that it unfurls its imagery as part of its structure. The first half is bound by the common element wind; the second, by what the wind animates: trees. I read Wind, Trees as a collection that looks at what brings groups to life, a spirit that you can feel whether gazing up in a reverie from the center of a stand of trees or communing with other people."--Alta
"In Freeman's ruminative, mournful, and precise follow-up to The Park, he says goodbye to the known world while savoring everything within it, even as it burns. The poems urge the reader to slow down, the line-breaks skillfully moving against the grain of natural phrasing, leaning toward 'a world/ where imagination and remembrance are the same thing.'. . . These deep and timely meditations beautifully illuminate humanity's plight."--Publishers Weekly
"Following his urbane ruminations in his last collection, The Park (2020), Freeman's observations about humanity's impacts on the natural world and the resulting spiritual conundrums remain sharp. His lines are, at times, sublime. In 'Perfume: ' 'The tangerine seller / undressing one / fruit after the other / misting the air.' The poet reminds us that we all share the experience of wind and trees as sensual truths. These poems record sensory encounters that ask how we live with nature and with each other. What is kept, what is let go? In 'Piano, ' Freeman writes, 'Who thought to thread / a wire through the belly / of a tree'. 'The Secret Country' ruminates on a bus ride in spring, with the whoosh beneath a canopy of trees and childhood's promise. 'Dusk' is a graceful tribute to the late, influential writer Barry Lopez: 'Maybe / endless love awaits us. I know you believed so', Freeman notes, ending with 'you are free to be the wind again.' These poems encourage us to feel the lushness and beauty of what we share now."--Raúl Nino, Booklist
"What strikes me about ["Dusk"], as well as many others in the volume, is its humility. Its refreshing lack of cynicism when (for some of us, me included) cynicism has become the jerk reaction, the easy means of coping with what ails us. John Freeman instead probes the depths of human affinity and the value of guidance without over-celebrating a given poem's subject."--Debra Gwartney, Terrain.org
"With this collection, Freeman compels us to feel, in turns of turbulence and stillness, the longing and rage and wonder that visit anyone keenly and tenderly paying attention to the passage of human life in an uncertain landscape and time. Freeman's poems become all at once like eulogy, like instruction, like acts of love."--Pitchaya Sudbanthad
"The poems I like most in John Freeman's new collection come in the book's second section, focused on trees. These seem to operate within the same rooted, deliberate grandeur of a grove of old-growth hardwoods. Freeman, a careful arborist, attends to each branch and leaf, describing what we might learn from the world by learning to read the messages communicated by the many vibrant living beings surrounding us."--Orion
Praise for John Freeman"I think
of John as one of the preeminent book people of our time."--Dave Eggers "This
second poetry collection by the editor of the biannual literary journal Freeman's
dwells on the symbolism of places where the human and natural worlds intersect:
'A park's / purpose is to temper the machine / in us.'"--The New York
Times "A fine
collection of spare, somber lyrics from an important figure in contemporary
writing; with this volume, Freeman steps forward for merited attention as a
poet in his own right." --Library Journal, starred review "Perfect
to take with you to your local park bench come spring, or whenever you need to
recover a little humanity."--Literary Hub "Atmospheric...
These meditative poems offer a thoughtful exploration on the contradictions and
connections formed in public spaces."--Publishers Weekly "Freeman
deftly stages his urbane poems of rumination over, even celebration of, the
complexities of life... Delight and humor abound... There is wistfulness in these
poems, though they never become mired in shadows of what is lost or gone."--Booklist "Freeman's
pensive volume is a fascinating consideration of the park as a place of
preserved wilderness... [L]ayers abound in these considerations of wild spaces."--The
Millions "Freeman
has a strong sense of the way boundaries reflect and enforce privilege and
history, and the international devastation wrought by the pandemic make his
insightful voice all the more timely." --The Rumpus "What is
mapped here, in John Freeman's exquisite and robust poetry debut, are the
territories of loss, pain, violence, and reckoning that make up a life. And
also those of love, remembrance, and unabashed passion that make that same life
livable. Maps is a consolation and a delight."--Tracy K. Smith "[Maps]
provides perhaps the best insight into the workings of a keen and compassionate
intelligence.[...] one cannot help but find the complex, near euphoric, beauty
that escapes like flares set beside a disabled vehicle on a lonely road." --Huffington
Post
"In Freeman's ruminative, mournful, and precise follow-up to The Park, he says goodbye to the known world while savoring everything within it, even as it burns. The poems urge the reader to slow down, the line-breaks skillfully moving against the grain of natural phrasing, leaning toward 'a world/ where imagination and remembrance are the same thing.'. . . These deep and timely meditations beautifully illuminate humanity's plight."--Publishers Weekly
"Following his urbane ruminations in his last collection, The Park (2020), Freeman's observations about humanity's impacts on the natural world and the resulting spiritual conundrums remain sharp. His lines are, at times, sublime. In 'Perfume: ' 'The tangerine seller / undressing one / fruit after the other / misting the air.' The poet reminds us that we all share the experience of wind and trees as sensual truths. These poems record sensory encounters that ask how we live with nature and with each other. What is kept, what is let go? In 'Piano, ' Freeman writes, 'Who thought to thread / a wire through the belly / of a tree'. 'The Secret Country' ruminates on a bus ride in spring, with the whoosh beneath a canopy of trees and childhood's promise. 'Dusk' is a graceful tribute to the late, influential writer Barry Lopez: 'Maybe / endless love awaits us. I know you believed so', Freeman notes, ending with 'you are free to be the wind again.' These poems encourage us to feel the lushness and beauty of what we share now."--Raúl Nino, Booklist
"What strikes me about ["Dusk"], as well as many others in the volume, is its humility. Its refreshing lack of cynicism when (for some of us, me included) cynicism has become the jerk reaction, the easy means of coping with what ails us. John Freeman instead probes the depths of human affinity and the value of guidance without over-celebrating a given poem's subject."--Debra Gwartney, Terrain.org
"With this collection, Freeman compels us to feel, in turns of turbulence and stillness, the longing and rage and wonder that visit anyone keenly and tenderly paying attention to the passage of human life in an uncertain landscape and time. Freeman's poems become all at once like eulogy, like instruction, like acts of love."--Pitchaya Sudbanthad
"The poems I like most in John Freeman's new collection come in the book's second section, focused on trees. These seem to operate within the same rooted, deliberate grandeur of a grove of old-growth hardwoods. Freeman, a careful arborist, attends to each branch and leaf, describing what we might learn from the world by learning to read the messages communicated by the many vibrant living beings surrounding us."--Orion
Praise for John Freeman"I think
of John as one of the preeminent book people of our time."--Dave Eggers "This
second poetry collection by the editor of the biannual literary journal Freeman's
dwells on the symbolism of places where the human and natural worlds intersect:
'A park's / purpose is to temper the machine / in us.'"--The New York
Times "A fine
collection of spare, somber lyrics from an important figure in contemporary
writing; with this volume, Freeman steps forward for merited attention as a
poet in his own right." --Library Journal, starred review "Perfect
to take with you to your local park bench come spring, or whenever you need to
recover a little humanity."--Literary Hub "Atmospheric...
These meditative poems offer a thoughtful exploration on the contradictions and
connections formed in public spaces."--Publishers Weekly "Freeman
deftly stages his urbane poems of rumination over, even celebration of, the
complexities of life... Delight and humor abound... There is wistfulness in these
poems, though they never become mired in shadows of what is lost or gone."--Booklist "Freeman's
pensive volume is a fascinating consideration of the park as a place of
preserved wilderness... [L]ayers abound in these considerations of wild spaces."--The
Millions "Freeman
has a strong sense of the way boundaries reflect and enforce privilege and
history, and the international devastation wrought by the pandemic make his
insightful voice all the more timely." --The Rumpus "What is
mapped here, in John Freeman's exquisite and robust poetry debut, are the
territories of loss, pain, violence, and reckoning that make up a life. And
also those of love, remembrance, and unabashed passion that make that same life
livable. Maps is a consolation and a delight."--Tracy K. Smith "[Maps]
provides perhaps the best insight into the workings of a keen and compassionate
intelligence.[...] one cannot help but find the complex, near euphoric, beauty
that escapes like flares set beside a disabled vehicle on a lonely road." --Huffington
Post
