He is, he says, interested in “the prismatic quality of light in woodland, and how the light seems to be in blades, with the trees seeming to chop up the light. “And it came to represent time and continuity and being rooted, particularly as I had parents from two different continents.” Kunial’s poem Fielder describes how, while looking for a lost cricket ball, he finds himself unexpectedly in the undergrowth of woodland, “a shady fingernail of forest”, and has a moment of clarity, like “a stopped clock”. “It became known in the family as ‘my tree’,” he says. In Arboreal, the poet Zaffar Kunial describes how a laburnum tree in the back garden of his childhood home in Birmingham became meaningful to him, giving him a sense of rootedness.
It is also the subject of his most recent book A Place of Refuge. Jones has established a community in the UK, the Windsor Hill Wood, “a refuge for people in crisis”. “Nature deficit syndrome is real, and I’m convinced that the woodland setting is the most healing environment there is,” he says. “‘Tree time’ can be grounding for those undergoing stress,” agrees Tobias Jones, an author who is among the contributors to Arboreal and who spoke on a panel at the Hay Festival to discuss the subject. The Charter for Trees, Woods and People is the 21st Century equivalent, and is to be published in November this year. It is also working on a modern version of The Charter of the Forest, which was originally drawn up in England in 1217, hot on the heels of the Magna Carter, and looked at our rights and responsibilities in relation to the nation’s forests, including issues such as grazing of pigs and the lighting of fires. The Trust collaborates with Common Ground on a seasonal periodical Leaf! that shares art, poetry and stories about trees. The Woodland Trust in the UK is a strong promoter of ‘tree time’ as a way to make us feel better in body, mind and spirit, and claims that our immersion in nature calms our spirit and helps us cope with stress. “The paradox of pastoral is that it always seems to be harking back to a lost rural world, but at the same time, it’s always springing up again in new forms with urgent contemporary relevance.” “But new writing about trees is also part of very old literary traditions,” she tells BBC Culture. Contributors include poet Zaffar Kunnial, authors Tobias Jones, Helen Dunmore, Ali Smith, Germaine Greer, Richard Mabey and more.Īrboreal contributor Fiona Stafford, also the author of The Long, Long Life of Trees, points out that the current tree obsession in literature is part of the burgeoning trend for new nature writing, which is at least partly related to awakening concern about the environment. It features essays by architects, artists and academics as well as by authors who have an association with or affinity to trees and forests. William Wordsworth’s poem It Was an April Morning, meanwhile, captures the beauty and promise of a tree in Spring.Īmong the tree-themed books to emerge recently is an anthology, Arboreal: A Collection of New Woodland Writing, which explores the literature, history, mythology and folk culture of trees and woodland.
Other examples include 19th-Century English poet John Clare who wrote in rural dialect and whose poem The Fallen Elm explores the freedoms both lost and gained with industrialisation, when swathes of ancient woodland were felled. Hesse is just one of many authors, poets, artists and philosophers who, over the centuries, have been inspired by trees and woodland. Not that trees are a new subject in literature, of course. A beautiful animation of Philip Larkin’s The Trees The stories behind Britain’s weirdest weather words So why the recent tree obsession? Why are writers and artists so drawn to trees as a subject? What can trees teach us? Can trees actually make us happy and more tranquil?
In recent years, there has been a sharp rise too in tree literature, with new books on the subject appearing regularly – among them The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, Strange Labyrinth by Will Ashon, The Long, Long Life of Trees by Fiona Stafford and the allegorical tale The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono, to name just a few. And the practice of Shinrin-yoku, the Japanese term for ‘taking in the forest atmosphere’ or ‘forest bathing’, is currently back in fashion as a popular type of preventative health care and healing in Japanese medicine. Now ‘tree time’ is enjoying a resurgence in popularity – on social media the tree hashtags #treesofinstagram and #lovetrees are rapidly proliferating.
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