A Tree Becomes a Room
Poems that travel with a sense of urgency, bearing witness to precarious beauty, fleeting joy and the unfinished work required to survive.
The poems in this collection are located in many places including Italy, Russia, Hawaii, Florida, France, Texas, Minnesota and elsewhere. These different places are roots of the same tree that stands in the midst of a threatened and still beautiful earth. Through multiple locations, White explores how we might continue to live inside this vanishing with all the tools that have always been at our disposal: wonder, grief, hope and joy. The poems are meditations on this perilous moment in time and the demands that this moment places on anyone to stay curious and grateful even in the midst of our inability to change course or self-correct with a view toward the greater interconnectedness of all things.
J.P. White is the author of five books of poems and a novel, Every Boat Turns South.
He has published essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry in many places including The Nation, The New Republic, The Gettysburg Review, Agni Review, Catamaran, APR, Salamander, Catamaran, North American Review, Shenandoah, The Georgia Review, Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, Water-Stone, The New York Times, Willow Springs, Crazyhorse, Peripheries, and Poetry (Chicago). Whiskey & Hard Water, a second novel, is forthcoming in 2024 from Regal House Publishing. He is the editor-at-large for Plant-Human Quarterly.
