Extract courtesy of the artist

Paul Rooney has written a new piece for the book called Letters that Rot into Mulch. The story offers a particular relationship between nature, in the form of a tree and a human world. From the position of the tree we consider this relationship very differently as the imposed anthropomorphic traits seem to reveal much about our own concerns.

PAUL ROONEY

Letters that Rot into Mulch (extract)

2008. 

“Franz loves nature generally, it appears, but has an overwhelming love of trees in particular. He talks at great length about how magnificent trees are. This does not aid one’s pain. One never speaks to him, because one has assessed that this may either frighten him or encourage him in his misguided enthusiasms. So one is silent. Franz invariably says that he is busy. Apart from the letter posting he organises wildlife treks and translates Polish contemporary poetry into English and weaves blankets in the traditional Welsh style and dives for pearls and grows rare mushrooms and rustles deer and has a large part in the town’s amateur dramatic society’s production of Saint Joan and he also sings.”