I attended a writing workshop on January 21 with Winnipeg author Ariel Gordon. She came with a couple of books:
As you can tell — she is passionate about trees! That makes Ariel someone after my own heart, as anyone who reads my blog posts will know. I did a very quick browse, and found some of my past posts on trees:
https://linesfromthecoast.blogspot.com/2020/12/trees-again.html
https://linesfromthecoast.blogspot.com/2022/10/trees.html
https://linesfromthecoast.blogspot.com/2021/10/a-retroactive-thank-you.html
And, back when I lived in the Shuswap, I also posted about trees:
https://shuswapreflections.blogspot.com/2019/09/looking-up-trees-of-downtown-salmon-arm.html
https://shuswapreflections.blogspot.com/2019/03/on-silence-and-trees.html
https://shuswapreflections.blogspot.com/2019/06/to-planters-of-trees.htm
During the workshop, we spent a lot of time outdoors, practising “focussed attention” on one tree of our choice. Gordon emphasized the importance of vivid detail in our poems, and the best way to develop this detail, she said, is through such focussed attention.
The workshop venue was a private home close to the Gorge, so there were trees in plenty nearby. I didn’t take many photos, but here’s one of a multi-stemmed cedar that I spent some time with.
Gordon encouraged us to feel the tree, examine its bark and any damp mosses growing from it, to smell it, to look at its canopy from a distance and then come in close to peer, almost microscopically. I looked at fungi so tiny they reminded me of childhood imaginations of pixies sitting inside little mushroom cups. Then we went back indoors and wrote, triggered by what we’d observed outside.
Back in Winnipeg, Ariel Gordon has initiated public participation projects with trees, inviting people to write short poems of two or three lines and hang them on wool that she wraps around a tree. The photo below, taken from her website, shows the process.
If she’d been here longer, perhaps she could have done something similar here. I like the idea of poetry as a collective action of focussed attention on nature. Each of us has language and music within us; we each can be a poet.
I liked that idea..I have a big cedar in my back yard…she may just need tree poetry…but i think the squirrels and racoons would take the poem away, especially the wool part!
can you share your tree poetry? perhaps in another newsletter…
thanks Sarah,
best Liz
Hi Liz! Thanks for asking about my tree poetry. A good idea for the future; I have much raw material, all of which needs development!
Thank you Sarah..I attended a poetry workshop at the Dunbar community centre…we were asked to write poetry about our favourite places in the city..then the organizers placed the poems on an interactive map of the city..on line…people could click on any of the indicated locations and read what people had written about their experiences in that particular spot.
I have also attended a Witness Program to save he Elaho Valley..as a group we sat and circled a massive first growth Douglas Fir,,,the next day the group leader, a photographer from the NFB, took us to the area of clearcut where we stood on the stump of trees that she had actually photographed the summer before…vey vey powerful
Interesting Sharon, thanks for telling me about that idea. Poetry on an interactive map… that sounds quite amazing!
And visiting a clearcut area is definitely an emotional journey, especially if it’s been recent. The fragrance of the cut trees hangs in the area, but you know it’s for the wrong reason.
Thank you, Sarah. This is very interesting.