Wind, Trees

A politically urgent yet timeless collection that studies the 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.

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.