Unruly Tree - (Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry) by Leslie Ullman (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The cryptic prompts--fragments, really--of Brian Eno's and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies unveiled themselves to Leslie Ullman as rough translations from an obscure language. As an experiment, Ullman used each one as a poem title, and in doing so she accessed a thrill of freedom, uncertainty, and propulsion beyond her own familiar patterns and landscapes. In the process, she found herself exploring the literary, visual, and musical arts from angles that had never occurred to her before.

Unruly Tree showcases the most successful of Ullman's play, and the result is a marvelous work by a poet at the height of her craft. At its heart this book is about process itself--even when it applies to experiences outside the arts--and about reclaiming an inner freedom many of us lose in our lives as adults in these noisy, rancorous times.

Review Quotes

"Unruly Tree is a joyful, searching book that pursues questions about the world of creativity and play. In conversation with the Oblique Strategies--a deck of cards created in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt--Ullman's collection is filled with curiosity, a desire to understand the thinking of other artists, and the beautiful uncertainties of the self."--Jehanne Dubrow, author of Exhibitions: Essays on Art and Atrocity


"Because there is no shrugging off 'the weight and shame / of being human, ' the gift that Leslie Ullman's Unruly Tree offers is precious, as over and over its poems 'glimpse / something diamond pure / for a moment in ourselves.'"--Harvey L. Hix, author of The Gospel According to H. L. Hix