The Joseph Tree, by Isabel Chenot
Isabel Chenot has loved and practiced poetry all her remembered life. Her work has appeared in places like Anima, Assisi, Blue Unicorn, Quill & Parchment, Spirit Fire, Rabbit Room, Tinderbox, and Story Warren. Her retelling of an old fairy tale, West of Moonlight, East of Dawn, is forthcoming with Propertius Press.
PAPERBACK
84 pp. | 5.25 in x 8 in
978-1951319243
January 31, 2022
"Chenot’s poetry offers us fresh eyes with which to see—beauty, brokenness, and the surprising Transcendence that connects them." —James Witmer, author of A Year in the Big Old Garden, Beside the Pond, and The Strange New Dog
"In The Joseph Tree, desert and mountain offer a window into the eternal—appearing sometimes clear and bright, then fading to leave mere human life in its wake. This deep response to nature and to spiritual experience is never—as it might so easily become—sentimental: indeed this work is an offering to a friend who has had to bury her own son. 'A heart must be broken to hold this land.' Chenot knows too well that both grief and love lie at the heart of everything, and she shows us that reflected in the wide spaces of America: 'I told you I was glad to be alive.'" —Marcus James, editor of Anima Poetry Press
There is both beauty and wisdom to be found in this lucid and finely drawn book. The Joseph Tree has its roots deep in both Scripture and landscape, Word and World, and the poetry deftly traces the lines of connection between the two Testaments, and between both Testaments and our own lives as we live them now. —Dr. Malcolm Guite, author of Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Singing Bowl: Poems, and many others
"These poems are as raw and beautiful as spring flowers after rain. They brim with sparkling images that light up their world, whether that is landscape (Chenot has an exceptional ability to feel landscape) or the experiences of life and faith. They combine considerable technical accomplishment with the authenticity of lived and reflected experience. A remarkable collection." —Dr. Richard Bauckham, winner of the Christianity Today Book Award and former Professor at the University of St. Andrews
"Isabel Chenot’s book, The Joseph tree, is dedicated to a friend of hers and to the friend’s little boy who died. Chenot approaches this sorrow tenderly, mapping the context, basics of earth and seed and fruit. Reading her work is like riding a great bird as it dips and soars; recurring themes of land and light expose a topography of grace. She addresses our beginning, formed by God, 'each shining seed as if it were a larval sun.' Our present, its joys and thorns, 'How many waves can our shell hold… how many pearls?' And our future, gathered back to God, Who 'knows what it cost to have a son torn from his coat.' This book grapples bravely with the work of grief, offers a moving analogy of birth and mourning, and reassures us that even the seeming finality of being buried in the soil can be a beginning." —Cindy Bousquet Harris, poet, editor of Spirit Fire Review
“Isabel Chenot’s new collection The Joseph Tree, recalls with profound poignancy, the heartache of a mother burying a son lost too soon. A Bible verse taken from Psalm 84 lights the path of this journey-themed collection: ‘Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.’ Chenot’s poetry is equal to the task set before her. She writes with a heart full of love for her subject and for her main characters. In the broader scope of things, this is a collection poems about life itself. The ultimate task of the poet, her job if you will, is to tell the truth... tell it new, in fresh and elegant ways. In this Isabel Chenot has succeeded with uncommon grace.” —Michael Escoubas, author of Images: A Collection of Ekphrastic Poetry
