Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees

Join local poets and poets across Canada in celebrating the launch of Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees. With over 100 poems and contributions from poets all over the country, Heartwood is a tribute to and celebration of the timeless impact of nature on Canadian poetry. 

Available through Amazon.ca and directly from the League, proceeds from online sales of Heartwood will help the League help poets and poetry in Canada. All poems in the anthology were contributed by members of the League of Canadian Poets. 

Launches across Canada will also support the Call of the Forest initiative, an educational initiative that aims to look at the irreplaceable roles trees play in protecting and feeding the planet. Interested hosts can organize a joint screening and launch for Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees and the 1-hour documentary Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees. 

From the publisher:

We must turn to the poets to expand dreams. This is because trees are the parents to the child deep within us. Forests bear silent witness to the tides of time upon which we will be judged. Trees are a gift of the galaxies, their fabric a web of stardust. The web holds nothing, a void from nowhere. This is the playground of the poets, the great plane of creation. The entire music of the universe is held in the trees. It is amplified again, again, and again within the forest. To listen to this music is to meditate. Taken alone, this is sufficient reason to make all forests sacred. And us accountable.

~ Diana Beresford-Kroeger, author of The Sweetness of a Simple Life and The Global Forest: 40 ways trees can save us

Beyond beauty, and gifts of long, clear inhalations of breath, trees and poems have much in common—often understood and described as a collection of lines. Heartwood is as elegant and gorgeous, as powerful and potent as any mathematician’s line, representations of ‘realities’ too difficult to summarize any other way than through a gorgeous elegant abstraction

of what would otherwise be nearly incomprehensible to the human mind. Prepare to travel lines of provocation, prepare to be moved by the lyric line in service of trees.

~ Sarah de Leeuw, author of Geographies of a Lover and Skeena; League of Canadian Poets President (2017-19)

Trees matter, and we have written about them with the windows of our hearts open, breathing in the good air that the forests provide.

~ Lesley Strutt, editor, Heartwood

Contributors:

Sylvia Adams
Lillian Allen
Mia Anderson
Cheryl Antao-Xavier
Bill Arnott
Sonja Arntzen
Susan Jane Atkinson
Jonathan Ball
Marsha Barber
Brian Bartlett
Maxianne Berger
bill bissett
Barbara Lynne Black
Rita Bouvier
Di Brandt
Allan Briesmaster
Jacquie Buncel
Heather Cadsby
Ann Elizabeth Carson
Louise Carson
Lori Cayer
Sue Chenette
George Elliott Clarke
Rosemary Clewes
Brenda Clews
Joan Conway
Dennis Cooley
Flavia Cosma
Claudia Coutu Radmore
Nane Couzier
Phillip Crymble
Robert Currie
Mary Dalton
Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni
Magie Dominic
Anthony Di Nardo
John Donlan
Miriam Dunn MacDonald
Alison K. Dyer
Amanda Earl
Daniela Elza
Joanne Epp
Kim Fahner
Harold Feddersen
Linda Frank
Katerina Fretwell
Pam Galloway
Keith Garebian
Judy Gaudet
Veronica Gaylie
Suparna Ghosh
Adele Graf
Catherine Graham
Elizabeth Greene
gillian harding-russell
Maureen Scott Harris
Steve Heighton
Brian Henderson
Luann E. Hiebert
Jessica Hiemstra
Nancy Holmes
Barbara Hunt
Luciano Iacobelli
Keith Inman
Kevin Irie
Doyali Islam
Sally Ito
Marvyne Jenoff
Elena E. Johnson
Jim Johnstone
Clara Joseph
Patricia Keeney
Penn Kemp
Norma J. Kerby
Monica Kidd
Sarah Klassen
Judith Krause
Fiona Tinwei Lam
Ted Landrum
Donna Langevin
Max Layton
John B. Lee
Carl Leggo
Brenda Leifso
Joanna Lilley
Lois Lorimer
Jeanette Lynes
Dorothy Mahoney
Alice Major
Blaine Marchand
Dave Margoshes
Kate Marshall Flaherty
Don Martin
Sheila Martindale
Wendy A. McGrath
rob mclennan
Susan McMaster
Kenneth McRobbie
George McWhirter
Anne Michaels
Carmelo Militano
Michael Mirolla
Lorie Miseck
Lynda Monahan
Stephen Morrissey
Colin Morton
Roger Nash
Emily Nilsen
Chad Norman
Merle Nudelman
Debbie Okun Hill
Richard Osler
Gianna Patriarca
Michael Penny
Allan Peterkin
Pamela Porter
David Pratt
Karen Quevillon
Al Rempel
Pierrette Requier
Giovanna Riccio
Bruce Rice
Greg Santos
Angeline Schellenberg
Eleonore Schönmaier
Brenda Sciberras
Daniel G. Scott
Bryan Sentes
Vanessa Shields
Sue Sinclair
K.V. Skene
Hendrik Slegtenhorst
Glen Sorestad
Carol A. Stephen
Catherine J. Stewart
Sheila Stewart
Nellie P. Strowbridge
Betsy Struthers
Lesley Strutt
Lynn Tait
John Terpstra
Emmanuelle Vivier
Naomi Beth Wakan
David Waltner-Toews
Terry Watada
Phyllis Webb
Cassy Welburn
Margo Wheaton
David Yerex Williamson
Sheri-D Wilson
Elana Wolff
Bänoo Zan
Carolyn Zonalio