All Is Leaf: Essays and Transformations (Bur Oak Book)

English | 218 pages | University Of Iowa Press (June 6, 2022) | 1609388356 | EPUB,PDF | Mb

Drawing inspiration and urgency from the storied Goethe Oak tree at Buchenwald concentration campand from the leaf as symbol of all change, growth, and renewalaward-winning essayist John Price explores a multitude of dramatic transformations, in his life and in the fragile world beyond: the how of the organismthat keeps your humanity alive.

He employs an array of forms and voices, whether penning a break-up letter to America or a literary rock-n-roll road song dedicated to prairie scientists, or giving pregame pep talks to his sons losing football team. Here, too, are moving portrayals of his fathers last effort as a small-town lawyer to defend the rights of abused women, and his own efforts as a writing teacher to honor the personal stories of his students.

From his Iowa backyard to the edge of the Arctic Circle, from the forgotten recesses of the body to the far reaches of the solar system, this book demonstrates the ways imagination and informed compassion can, as Price describes it, expand thousandfold the boundaries of what we might have navely considered an individual self.