Rooted In Story: the Art and Metaphor of POETREE

[jjhunter]

poetree sprouted from a visual seed, itself a snapshot of a pun made art.


Mysterious paper 'poetree' sculpture - photo by chrisdonia

What is a 'poetree'? It sounds like poetry, and looks like an elision of poet's tree. And in the case of the image above, it is a small, extraordinarily detailed paper sculpture of a tree lovingly crafted from strips of printed paper and mounted on a book. The anonymous artist who left it as a surprise gift at the Scottish Poetry Library a year and a half ago also left this message referencing the library's Twitter handle:

It started with your name @ByLeavesWeLive and became a tree… We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words… This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas…

Closeup of 'poetree' - photo by Michael MacLeod

The artist is still unknown, but the 'poetree' proved to be the first of ten such sculptures anonymously (and covertly) donated to various Edinburgh cultural institutions over the course of nine months (link includes pictures). As a symbol of literary intrigue and whimsical delight, the 'poetree' is a manifesto incarnate: poetry as a living transformative art.



As a community, poetree is also the poet's tree. As I wrote in a villanelle of that name exactly one year ago to this day, the poet's tree can be a protective, stabilizing presence for those exploring poetry:

I drink in other ways the world could be
and reel from truth exploding like a bomb
pebbles splash into pools of poetry

shaken I seek shelter to anchor me
away from thoughts that threaten to becalm
and I find rest beneath the poet's tree

It is from this alternate reading of POETREE that the comm draws on various community-as-tree metaphors: "Under the Branches of the Poet's Tree", "Sunday Picnic", "Climbing the Poet's Tree" (community challenges), and so forth. It has also become the motif that artist Tod Wills, aka djinni, has used in creating original art for poetree's use.



New as of this week is the following piece, which Todd created using the aforementioned villanelle as a reference:


Original art for poetree by Tod Wills

In the words of the artist:

I wanted to emphasize the pebble and water part of the poem, so I spent a lot of time on getting that to look how I wanted. It's a little different from how I usually approach water, more transparent, so I learned a bit while working on it. I draw a lot of trees in general, because they're so calming to work on - follow a few simple rules to keep it tree-shaped, and then there's not much to mess up, so I can focus on making it look nice.

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From 'poetree' to poetree, we've come a long way from that first seed of a subversive idea; I look forward to seeing where we might grow in the year to come.

shape ourselves into words flowing free
make myth our bones and metaphor embalm
pebble dropped into pool of poetry
we come to rest beneath the poet's tree