Trees of West Hartford - The Poetry of Trees (NWL)

THE POETRY OF TREES with Roderick Waterman. Poetry is inspired by many sources, but the impact of nature on the poetic imagination is perhaps a greater influence than any other (except, perhaps, for those old chestnuts love and romance). There are, to take just one example of nature poetry, lots of poems about trees, and we will look at a sampling of them together, to see how trees have been the raw material, not only for the paper on which we read, but also for the subject matter of so many great lyric poems. We will be looking at a handful of poets, English, Irish, and American, male and female, who have been inspired by the natural world around them, and put trees to work in the service of their various metaphorical and imaginative projects.

YOUR POEM: Write your own tree poem (a poem featuring a tree or trees) and bring it along. We will make time at the end of the session for you to read your original tree poem (maximum length one page). Optional. 

Roderick Waterman is an adjunct instructor in the English Department at Central Connecticut State University, where he mostly teaches students how to read poetry. He is also Director of the Office of Grants and Funded Research at CCSU. He is a music writer and amateur painter, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia. He is not a very good gardener, but he very much enjoys trees, and the idea of trees, regardless of that fact that his thumbs are not green.

This program is made possible with generous funding from the Thomas F. Kilfoil Memorial Bequest.

TREES OF WEST HARTFORD Supporting Programs
• May 30 [Thursday, 7PM]
     Carl A. Salsedo on “Choosing Native Trees for Connecticut Landscapes”
• June 6 [Thursday, 7PM]
     Emma Kravet and Beth Bernard on “Inspiring a Love of Trees”
• August 7 [Wednesday, 7PM]
     Roderick Waterman on “The Poetry of Trees”
• September 26 [Thursday, 7PM]
     Wadsworth Atheneum with “Trees in Art”
• October 4 [Friday, 4PM]
     Karen Israel on “Drawing Trees Using Charcoal and Pastel”
• October 5 [Saturday, 10:30am] 
     John Kehoe: "Tree Identification Walk" (approx. 2 hours)
• October 17 [Thursday, 7PM]
     Frank Kaputa on “Notable Trees in Connecticut (and West Hartford)"
• November 18 [Monday, 7:00PM]
     One World Lecture - "The Not-So-Secret Life of Trees"
• Dec. 3, 2019 – Feb. 28, 2020
     Trees of West Hartford – Juried Art Exhibition

PARKING: There is ample library parking in the nearby Isham Garage. Please bypass the garage payment kiosks and come directly to the lecture in the Noah Webster Library Meeting Room, 20 South Main Street, where you may validate your parking with your license plate number.

Listing of all tree programs: http://bit.ly/treeprograms