Footdreams and Treetales
Elliot R. Wolfson
Footdreams and Treetales is a collection of ninety-two poems spanning several decades. Like paintings that attempt to render visible the invisible, the poems reflect Wolfson’s interests in philosophy, the history of religions, and, in particular, the mystical dimensions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
Although explicit references to the divine are rarely found in the poems, they issue from an encounter with the mystery of transcendence, performatively embodying the dialectic of concealment and disclosure.
Seeking to articulate the unsaying that makes possible all saying, a response always on the way, a word as yet unspoken, these poems can be imagined in liturgical terms. They do not utter words of conventional prayer but are a contemplative gaze at what eludes contemplation—a present that comes to be in the future awaiting its past. For Wolfson, the poem is an opening to time, which is, at once, an embrace of life and a preparation for death.
friday’s hymn
pour oil on my head,
before the burning ends,
let us rise to count the minutes,
to dot the hours,
let us rise to wake the children
who must bury the dead.
night approaches day,
neither black nor white,
her sun is my moon.
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About Elliot R. Wolfson
Reviews for Footdreams and Treetales
-Jeffrey J. Kripal Rice University "Accompanying thinking to the limits of the sayable, Wolfson traverses the regions of positing bequeathed by the great philosopher-poets, the stutterers and soothsayers. Accomplice to Holderlin and Paul Celan, he has stayed in this exemplary collection with the abyssal loneliness of the poetic word." CHECK IF CHANGING - ar3@nyu.edu.
-Avital Ronell New York University "Established as master scholar of Kabbalah, and, more recently, emerging as postmodern philosopher, Elliot R. Wolfson also makes poems. These spare but unsparing verses must now be taken into account by anyone seeking to understand Wolfson's work as a unity. They provide precious new clues for approaching his complex thought as a whole."
-Steven M. Wasserstrom Reed College "One must admire Wolfson's chutzpah for trying to find the words to express what perhaps cannot, or perhaps should not, be articulated." -Jewish Book World "In this elegant and forceful volume, Wolfson conflates the foot and the dream, the base and the crown. This collection of poems reads like an extended account of a mystical journey, one that spans multiple traditions and resonates in more ways than can be (un)said. Like expressive equivalents of his scholarly writings, Wolfson's poems evoke a sense of transmystical comparativism-of venturing beyond the boundaries of beyond. In so doing, the poems are like stars that have fallen to the ground, their lyrical sequences creating illuminated footpaths that invite readers to follow Wolfson's lead and walk with their feet in the sky."
-Marcia Brennan Rice University "A poetry collection characterised by contradictions, unexpected combinations, and constant reminders of the cyclic nature of life and time." -M/C Reviews