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nspiration provides a stimulus for creation, but the word also carries another meaning—the inhalation of air. Both meanings are at play in the new anthology Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees (Caitlin Press, April 2022). For poets have long breathed deep the wonder of trees to inspire their work, and the 136 poets collected here are no exception. The anthology, edited by Christine Lowther, Poet Laureate of Tofino from 2020 to 2022, provides an immersive, collective experience: we can revel in the poems while remembering that we all share the universal connection that is the gift of trees—the air we breath.
New Poetry Anthology Explores our Relationship with Trees
“Every poem is like a wakeup call, helping us to not just look at trees, but to experience them emotionally, physically, spiritually,” says Lowther. “It’s all about taking notice and really observing.”
preferred to wander through the pages and experience the poems at random. One of the strengths of the anthology is the variety of poetic voices, visions and techniques that take the reader on an emotional journey—from mourning, to outrage, to love, to nostalgia, to reverence, to spiritual awakening. It’s difficult not to come away from the poems without a deeper understanding of the symbolic resonance of our relationship to trees: they give us oxygen, shelter, fuel, shade, beauty and joy, and they link earth to sky, helping us see connections with the spiritual realm.
Out of the “thousands” of submissions, Lowther saw that the poems organized themselves naturally into four themes— connection, ecology, grief, and protection—and divided the anthology accordingly. Thanks to the nuanced and complex voices in this collection of some of Canada’s most established poets, there’s nothing prescriptive about the book’s structure, however. I
Of course, Worth More Standing can also be read as a piece of literary activism, and it’s no less powerful in this context. There is a connection here too. “I think activists feel deeply and so do poets,” says Lowther, who grew up in a family where activism was a way of life. Her late mother, the poet Pat Lowther, brought her along to picket developments in south
“The poems connect us on many levels, and from that connection I hope comes the inspiration to maybe be a bit more active for trees,” says Lowther who created the anthology during her tenure as poet laureate. It was the perfect project for her to involve people with poetry, despite the isolating constraints of COVID.
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