Tree of Knowledge
Will be published approx. on 9. July 2026
Book
Hardback
144 pages
978-1-4721-6030-0 (ISBN)
Description
A poet watches the limbs of a eucalyptus tree get sawed off: the image persists, recurring across poems of art, language, selfhood, memory, and loss.
Joan Mitchell said, When I talk about love, I mean loving a tree. When I talk about love, I mean loving where a tree used to be.
Men assess the eucalyptus tree growing on the poet's street; a crane arrives. The sound of a chainsaw rings in the air and branches begin to fall. This tree-cutting haunts the poet, and refracts across the remarkable work collected in Tree of Knowledge as Chang turns her thoughts to artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell and Hilma af Klint.
Roving, evocative, and intricate, Tree of Knowledge is rooted in Victoria Chang's crystalline voice and generous, probing gaze, and by certain images - trees, a hanging figure, a branch, fingertips, a briefcase - that resurface like apparitions.
Joan Mitchell said, When I talk about love, I mean loving a tree. When I talk about love, I mean loving where a tree used to be.
Men assess the eucalyptus tree growing on the poet's street; a crane arrives. The sound of a chainsaw rings in the air and branches begin to fall. This tree-cutting haunts the poet, and refracts across the remarkable work collected in Tree of Knowledge as Chang turns her thoughts to artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell and Hilma af Klint.
Roving, evocative, and intricate, Tree of Knowledge is rooted in Victoria Chang's crystalline voice and generous, probing gaze, and by certain images - trees, a hanging figure, a branch, fingertips, a briefcase - that resurface like apparitions.
Reviews / Votes
Chang changes the way readers see art, the world, and themselves in this contemplative epic that rivals the major works of Wallace Stevens and A. R. Ammons * Library Journal, *Starred Review* *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
13 colour photos and several poems in red font.
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
481 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4721-6030-0 (9781472160300)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Victoria Chang is the author of With My Back to the World (Corsair, 2024), which received the Forward Prize in Poetry for Best Poetry Collection. A few of her other books include The Trees Witness Everything, Dear Memory, and OBIT, named a TIME Magazine, NPR, Publisher's Weekly, and New York Times Book of the Year. OBIT received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN Voelcker Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize. It was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it was longlisted for a National Book Award. Her most recent children's book is Eureka. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and she is the Bourne Chair of Poetry at Georgia Tech and the Director of Poetry@Tech.