Unchopping a Tree download book DOC, PDF
9781595341877 English 1595341870 There's no mystery to chopping down a tree. But how do you put back together a tree that's been felled? Mystical instructions are required, and that's what W. S. Merwin provides in his prose piece "Unchopping a Tree." Written with a poet's grace, an ecologist's insights, and a Buddhist's reverence for life, this elegant work describes the difficult, sacred job of reconstructing a tree. Step by step, page by page, with Merwin's humble authority, secrets are revealed, and the destroyed tree rises from the forest floor. "Unchopping a Tree" appears for the first time in this self-contained volume of the same title. It opens with simplicity and grace: "Start with the leaves, the small twigs, and the nest that have been shaken, ripped, or broken off by the fall; these must be gathered and attached once again to their respective places." Who else but W. S. Merwin could write with such soaring majesty to recreate a tree from its broken parts? The work is a myth for our times, one that holds a place alongside Jean Giono's classic, best-selling The Man Who Planted Trees . Merwin, like many conservationists--and like poets Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, and Galway Kinnell, a fellow student at Princeton University--is quick to say: "When we destroy the so-called natural world around us we're simply destroying ourselves. And I think it's irreversible." Thus the tree takes on a scale that begs the reader's compassion, and one tree is a parable for the restoration of all nature. Interspersed throughout this inviting, gift-sized edition are Liz Ward's eleven delicate silverpoint drawings depicting the cellular life of trees. Ward draws on botanical sources like W. Williamson's nineteenth-century classic, On the Organization of the Fossil Plants of the Coal-Measures . She represents with fidelity the tree's interior life at the micro level, from its bark to its vascular system. Many of her drawings were made at the Dora Maar House in Provence, using pigments from the earth of the region in a multilayered process. Her intricate pastel artwork provides a quiet and powerful visual counterpoint to Merwin's lyrical and eloquent prose. Merwin writes from a place of intimacy with trees. Since 1977 he has dedicated himself to reclaiming a deserted pineapple plantation on the rainy side of Maui, in Hawai#145;i, planting a forest that has grown to be about 2,600 palm trees; the property recently became the Merwin Conservancy. Chipper Wichman of the National Tropical Botanical Garden says, "The Merwin palm collection is an amazing assemblage of extraordinary palms that have transformed the ecology of the small valley where they are planted." The world's foremost palm expert, John Dransfield, and his wife, botanist Soejatmi Dransfield, from South Wales, have joined the effort to catalog the conservancy's palms. Over a career that spans more than six decades, Merwin has published more than fifty books of poetry, translation, and prose. His first book of poems, A Mask for Janus , was selected by W. H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Prize, and Merwin has continued to win praise, honors, and awards, including every major distinction given to poets, writers, and translators. He has been unrivaled in his dedication to poetry and literature. That dedication is matched by his indomitable spirit to conserve the nonhuman world our lives depend on and his indefatigable passion for the power of memory to keep us whole.
9781595341877 English 1595341870 There's no mystery to chopping down a tree. But how do you put back together a tree that's been felled? Mystical instructions are required, and that's what W. S. Merwin provides in his prose piece "Unchopping a Tree." Written with a poet's grace, an ecologist's insights, and a Buddhist's reverence for life, this elegant work describes the difficult, sacred job of reconstructing a tree. Step by step, page by page, with Merwin's humble authority, secrets are revealed, and the destroyed tree rises from the forest floor. "Unchopping a Tree" appears for the first time in this self-contained volume of the same title. It opens with simplicity and grace: "Start with the leaves, the small twigs, and the nest that have been shaken, ripped, or broken off by the fall; these must be gathered and attached once again to their respective places." Who else but W. S. Merwin could write with such soaring majesty to recreate a tree from its broken parts? The work is a myth for our times, one that holds a place alongside Jean Giono's classic, best-selling The Man Who Planted Trees . Merwin, like many conservationists--and like poets Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, and Galway Kinnell, a fellow student at Princeton University--is quick to say: "When we destroy the so-called natural world around us we're simply destroying ourselves. And I think it's irreversible." Thus the tree takes on a scale that begs the reader's compassion, and one tree is a parable for the restoration of all nature. Interspersed throughout this inviting, gift-sized edition are Liz Ward's eleven delicate silverpoint drawings depicting the cellular life of trees. Ward draws on botanical sources like W. Williamson's nineteenth-century classic, On the Organization of the Fossil Plants of the Coal-Measures . She represents with fidelity the tree's interior life at the micro level, from its bark to its vascular system. Many of her drawings were made at the Dora Maar House in Provence, using pigments from the earth of the region in a multilayered process. Her intricate pastel artwork provides a quiet and powerful visual counterpoint to Merwin's lyrical and eloquent prose. Merwin writes from a place of intimacy with trees. Since 1977 he has dedicated himself to reclaiming a deserted pineapple plantation on the rainy side of Maui, in Hawai#145;i, planting a forest that has grown to be about 2,600 palm trees; the property recently became the Merwin Conservancy. Chipper Wichman of the National Tropical Botanical Garden says, "The Merwin palm collection is an amazing assemblage of extraordinary palms that have transformed the ecology of the small valley where they are planted." The world's foremost palm expert, John Dransfield, and his wife, botanist Soejatmi Dransfield, from South Wales, have joined the effort to catalog the conservancy's palms. Over a career that spans more than six decades, Merwin has published more than fifty books of poetry, translation, and prose. His first book of poems, A Mask for Janus , was selected by W. H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Prize, and Merwin has continued to win praise, honors, and awards, including every major distinction given to poets, writers, and translators. He has been unrivaled in his dedication to poetry and literature. That dedication is matched by his indomitable spirit to conserve the nonhuman world our lives depend on and his indefatigable passion for the power of memory to keep us whole.