Description
If the Universe is a kind of tree, as John Muir implies, love of forests must be at its root. This book is an arrangement of appreciations for trees as they sustain human consciousness, as they shape us and as we ourselves continue to learn from them.
If the Universe is a kind of tree, as John Muir implies, poetry and the love of forests must be at its root. This fifth issue of THE MADRONA PROJECT is an arrangement of appreciations of trees—urban, rural and wild—as they sustain human consciousness. Trees that have shaped us and that we ourselves continue to help, continue to grow with, continue to learn from. These poems and essays include work by: Bob Arnold, John Brandi, Kathleen Flenniken, Holly Hughes, Kim Stafford, Clemens Starck, Charles Goodrich, Jim Dodge, Jerry Martien, Ann Spiers, Risa Dennenberg, Sherry Mossafer Rind, Art Goodtimes, Tess Gallagher, Carlos Reyes, Kathleen Alcala, and a host of poets, essayist and artists from the Pacific Northwest, the American Southwest, throughout the Left Coast, from Israel, Canada, and the Netherlands.
Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Art. Nature.
”The Madrona Project series focuses art and literary content on people and communities and the environment that cradles them. Grateful for my poem “Witness” in The Madrona Project #4: Art in a Public Voice, and #5 is a full art and literary immersion in A Universe of Trees. This series is the best thing to arise in our area since the arrivals of Empty Bowl, Copper Canyon, Graywolf, Brooding Heron and Blue Begonia. The format is BIG and it makes a BIG statement.” —Bill Ransom, Grayland, Washington
”The Cascadian ecology has fostered some of the greatest temperate forests on earth. They have also fallen prey to what Finn Wilcox in this volume calls “the rotting extravagance of greed” of the timber industry and other agents of “development.” Yet these trees remain our great Cascadian teachers as they grow in primeval forests and legacy forests as well as clearcuts, city parks, rock outcroppings—wherever they can take root. This moving and inspiring new edition of The Madrona Project, which has emerged as a treasure of bioregional living, thinking, poeticizing, and artmaking, honors them with voice and image.” —Jason M. Wirth, Philosophy, Seattle University
”A wonderful, awe-inspiring salute to the Pacific Northwest & its many cultures! A must read!” —Larry Laurence, author of Life of The Bones To Come and Despairiments
Madrona has spread its branches and deepened its roots to gather songs, prayers, eulogies and celebrations of our beautiful fellow beings, the “standing people” who make all life possible. Trees nourish soils, store our water, purify our atmosphere, offer shade and warmth, and provide homes for an abundance of wildlife. They ask little of us in return, but the poets, writers and artists featured here open their hearts to the hearts of treesand offer a generous network of paths toward reciprocity.” —Tim McNulty, author of Ascendance and Olympic National Park: A Natural Hist
Author Bio
Michael Daley edits The Madrona ProjectM/i> anthology series and is author of Telemachus, a novel (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2022), REINHABITED: NEW & SELECTED POEMS (Dos Madres, 2022), and True Heresies, poems (Cervena Barva, 2022).
Finn Wilcox is author of TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW (Empty Bowl, 2017) and THE SILENCE OF A SHOOTING STAR (Empty Bowl, 2020).
Author City: ANACORTES, WA USA