Self-Portrait with Dogwood

(Paperback)

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In the course of researching dogwood trees, beloved poet and essayist Christopher Merrill realized that a number of formative moments in his life had some connection to the tree namedaccording to one writerbecause its fruit was not fit for a dog. As he approached his sixtieth birthday, Merrill began to compose a self-portrait alongside this tree whose lifespan is comparable to a humans and that, from an early age, hes regarded as a talisman.
Dogwoods have never been far from Merrills view at significant moments throughout his life, helping to shape his understanding of place in the great chain of being; entwined in his experience is the conviction that our relationship to the natural world is central to our walk in the sun. The feeling of a connection to nature has become more acute as his life has taken him to distant corners of the earth, often to war zones where he has witnessed not only humankinds propensity for violence and evil but also the enduring power of connections that can be forged across languages, borders, and politics. Dogwoods teach us persistence humility and wonder.
Self-Portrait with Dogwood is no ordinary memoir, but rather the work of a traveler who has crisscrossed the country and the globe in search of ways to make sense of his time here. Merrill provides new ways of thinking about personal history, the environment, politics, faith, and the power of the written word. In his descriptions of places far and near, many outside of the average Americans purviewa besieged city in Bosnia, a hidden path in a Taiwanese park, Tolstoys country house in Russia, a castle in Slovakia, a blossoming dogwood at daybreak in Seattlethe readers understanding of the world will flourish as well.

Reviews

"A memoir for lovers of writing and reading." Kirkus Reviews

His memoir, written as he was nearing his sixtieth year, traces the delicate, interactive web of creation that links humans and nature, illuminating how vital each small being, each plant, each person is to the whole. In travels across the globe, even to war zones where scenes of the depth of mans depravity were seared into his soul, Merrill also found the wonder of humanitys ability to love, to heal, and to connect; the dogwood serves both as a metaphor for this and, in its decline, as an an augur of our fate should we fail to honor these connections. Foreword Reviews

An arboreal memoir, an autobiographical dendrology: Merrill, like the dogwood seeds and seedlings, roams the planet, appearing or pausing at unexpected moments in history. The migrant trees sink their roots in various foreign soils; the man, though wanderingeven in zones of warremains rooted in the humus of poetry. Eliot Weinberger

Christopher Merrill is a national treasure, both as a writer and a global warrior for literature and witness. In a fine career of making exquisite books, Self-Portrait with Dogwood might be his most moving. Beauty rises from every page. Going on my short list of favorite booksI will refer to it and teach it for the rest of my life, like I do with Bash and Hanshan. A quiet classic. Luis Alberto Urrea

How wise of the U.S. State Department to send Christopher Merrill around the globe as a poet-ambassador. I cant imagine anyone better equipped to represent us to a suffering and turbulent world. His attentive ear and eye, his keen mind, his compassionate heart, his courage and eloquence are all richly displayed in this engrossing book. The stories he tells hereabout woods and waters, poetry and soccer, about literary heroes, an ailing daughter, and a dying friendare suffused by Merrills devotion to mercy and beauty, and by his fascination with the ineffable power we call nature. Scott Russell Sanders, author of Divine Animal

Christopher Merrill speaks to the essential and too often buried part of us that intuits the relatedness of all things (human beings and nature, love and war, shame and desire) and investigates the way those intersections urge some of us toward metaphor, toward a life dedicated to the making of art. Self-Portrait with Dogwood makes a case for a new type of memoir in which the selfrather than being spotlightedis but one slender thread in an intricate weave that reaches across species, centuries, and time zones. This is an elegant, intelligent, deeply compelling, and necessary book. Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted

How do we attach meaning to human existence Merrills memoir turns to the dogwood tree as talisman, a presence from his childhood through a life richly textured with natural, literary, and cultural history. His artful reflections on friendship, family, poetry, transplanting trees, and global diplomacy show how giving voice to nonhuman perspectives may indeed be essential to cultivating our humanity. Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit

Christopher Merrill has always believed in quests. Over many years and many books he has traveled out, confronting fear, admiring the courage and conviction of others, standing on the shoulders of giants to peer into the future. Without knowing it, he has followed a path in his work that was once common for poets before they turned inward; transforming terror into beauty. Los Angeles Review of Books

Part wanderlust epic, part reflection on nature, Merrills memoir will inspire the reader to walk in the sun. Booklist

Self-Portrait with Dogwood reveals Christopher Merrill as a master of the English language and as having a genuine flair for consistently engaging his readers with observations that are as informed and informative as they are thoughtful and thought-provoking. The result is a compendium of a life's story that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf. Midwest Book Review

Extraordinary, prismatic new memoir thats not a typical memoir, poet and global voyager Christopher Merrill approaching his seventh decade ruminates over his writing, his faith, his love of music and language, his accord with nature and environmental politics, and his kinship with his fellow man. San Antonio Express-News

A calming, almost meditative experience. It's a joy to follow the lines of Merrill's thoughts. Orion Magazine

Christopher Merrills Self-Portrait With Dogwood takes a poetic approach to memoir that weaves in threads of nature, politics, and faith as they connect to his memories of the dogwood tree, which he considers a talisman. Merrill writes in long, lyrical sentences packed with sound and meaning, yet there is an immediacy to his language that quickly reveals this as more than an exercise in reflection. Santa Fe New-Mexican

We're pleased that the beautiful Dogwood, from which Native Americans used to make toothbrushes, daggers and arrows, and the medieval English used in religious ceremonies, has had a such a close connection with Chris and triggered him to write this delightful memoir. Iowa Public Radio

Like nature itself, Merrills life, from a young age, has been punctuated by pure calm and extreme violence. These rhythms find their haunting, captivating expression in this slim, distilled book a handheld key to Merrills unique vision, and to the wonders of nature. Los Angeles Review Books

Author Bio

Christopher Merrill has published four collections of poetry, including Boat, Brilliant Water, and Watch Fire; many edited volumes and translations; and four books of nonfiction, including Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, and The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages, his journalism appears in many publications, and he has been the book critic for the daily radio news program The World. He directs the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Finalist, 2010 Best Translated Poetry Book Award, for Scale and Stairs: Selected Poems of Heeduk Ra, translated from the Korean with Won-Chung Kim. Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, French Ministry of Culture and Communications, 2006 The Kostas Kyriazis Foundation Honorary International Literary Prize, 2005 Translation Awards, Korean Literature Translation Institute, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2011 The Writers Association of Bosnia-Herzegovina Annual Literary Award, The Bosnian Stecak, 2001 Finalist, 1997 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, for The Four Questions of Melancholy: New and Selected Poems by Tomaz Salamun (editor) Translation Award, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, 1997 The Academy of American Poets Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award, 1993 Readers' Choice Award in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, 1992 Ingram Merrill Foundation Award in Poetry, 1991 Editors' Award in Poetry, Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry & Prose, 1990 Pushcart Prize XV in Poetry, 1990 John Ciardi Fellow in Poetry, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1989 Sherman Brown Neff Fellowship, University of Utah, 1986-1987