Embracing Books About Trees

“We need trees. They give us oxygen, wood, medicine, food, shelter, shade, paper –the list goes on and on.” –Dearborn Public Library; Dearborn Michigan*

When was the last time you hugged a tree? Admit it, during these pandemic on-again-off-again lockdowns, reading a good book or taking a quiet stroll through a tree-lined park often eased the emptiness from those missed social gatherings with family and friends. 

Forests have healing powers and that is one reason trees need to remain in good health for future generations.  On Sunday, March 21, 2021, concerned organizations and individuals with the help of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations celebrated International Day of Forests ( #IntlForestDay ). This year’s theme was “Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being.” For additional details, here is the link.

International Day of Forests was celebrated March 21, 2021.

I’m not much of an activist, but as a writer and a reader, I’ve been impressed by some of the tree-themed literary projects that have been organized and promoted over the years. The following books were not affiliated with International Day of Forests, but I wanted to draw attention to them.

TREE BOOKS – HOT OFF THE PRESS:

Tree Anthology edited by Henry Fischer, Nicole Lane, Kathryn Takach, and Dan Lodge (Dearborn Public Library 2021) 294 pages.

What a beautiful book. I am hugging this anthology now and I look forward to reading the variety of stories and poems written by 67 contributors ranging from the school aged youth to the retired young at heart. There is also a Picture-a-Tree section featuring striking black and white images taken during Michigan’s stay-at-home orders.

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Winnipeg Launch – Tarnished Trophies – May 25 with Special Guest Readers

You are invited

 Winnipeg launch/celebration Tarnished Trophies (Black Moss Press) featured poet Debbie Okun Hill with special guests Brenda Hasiuk, Carmelo Militano, and Brenda Sciberras

To all my family, friends, former co-workers and relatives who are still living near the Winnipeg area, please stop by and say hello. Treat this as a reunion. Feel free to invite those I may have lost touch with. This is a public event.

You do not have to love poetry or be a book worm. I will not be twisting your arm to purchase books unless you want me to. I want this to be fun! If you know my private e-mail, let me know you are coming so we can ensure we have enough chairs set up. If you come without notifying me know, that is fine too.

This is also a great opportunity to hear and support the work of three local writers. I can’t wait to meet Brenda H. and Brenda S. Both were recently shortlisted for a Manitoba Book Award.* More details will be available following the awards dinner on April 25. Carmelo is also active in the community and hosts P.I. New Poetry, a half-hour poetry-themed radio show aired live every Sunday from 4:30 to 5 p.m.I look forward to meeting him too!

*NOTE added on May 6, 2015: Special congratulations to Brenda Hasiuk shortlisted for the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher and to Brenda Sciberras shortlisted for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer and the recipient of the 2015 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book.

Special thanks to McNally Robinson Booksellers for all their help and suggestions and to the three listed traditional publishers who made these books possible.

Hope to see you there!

–Debbie

FEATURED READERS (in alphabetical order):

Brenda Hasiuk Photo by Ian McCausland

Brenda Hasiuk’s short stories have appeared in some of Canada’s top literary journals, including The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, and Prism International. Her previous two novels have received much critical acclaim. Boy Lost in Wild is Brenda’s first collection of short stories. Brenda lives in Winnipeg, the coldest major city on earth, with her husband and two children.

Debbie Okun Hill Photo by Melissa Upfold for the Calculated Colour

Debbie Okun Hill is a former Manitoba resident: a CreComm graduate from Red River College and a former employee with The Regional News (Selkirk) and The Winnipeg Art Gallery. Her interest in poetry developed after moving to Ontario to pursue a public relations career. Today, her poems appear in over 100 Canadian and U.S. publications including Descant, Existere, The Binnacle, The Literary Review of Canada, The Windsor Review and Vallum. Tarnished Trophies is her first book. Visit her blog.

Carmelo Militano Photo by Vera Palette

Carmelo Militano is a Winnipeg writer and poet. He is the author of three poetry chapbooks and four books including the novel Sebastiano’s Vine and a memoir/travelogue. In 2004, he won the 2004 F.G. Bressani award for poetry. Morning After You is his most recent publication.

Brenda Sciberras Photo by Kate Robinson

Brenda Sciberras is a Winnipeg writer whose poetry has appeared in several Canadian literary magazines and anthologies. She holds a BA from the University of Manitoba and divides her time between working fulltime in a library, singing in the Spirit’s Call Choir, writing, and her family. Magpie Days is her first book.

THE BOOKS (in alphabetical order):

Boy Lost in Wild (Turnstone Press) by Brenda Hasiuk

We may be lost but we are never alone. That is the message to be found in Brenda Hasiuk’s new collection of short stories, Boy Lost in Wild. Adrift in unfamiliar surroundings, strangers to the strangers around them, the characters in each story feel lost even though they are inextricably tied to one another. A foreign student, mugged on the streets of Winnipeg, befriends his landlord. A young man bursting with rage shares a quiet moment with a sibling. The tears of a child who cannot find his way home are soothed by the voice of an elderly woman. Through sparkling prose, Hasiuk’s stories ring true, cutting through the alienation of urban life and lighting the threads that bind us to one another.

Magpie Days (Turnstone Press) by Brenda Sciberras
Clever and persistent, Magpie Days, the debut poetry collection from Brenda Sciberras, picks through the baubles and trinkets of the everyday. And like the black and white plumage of the magpie, Sciberras’s poems balance the exquisite tension between joy and misery. Evoking life-defining events from the remembrance of a first bicycle to the loss of a close friend, these poems acknowledge pleasure and pain as necessary to life.

Morning After You (Ekstasis Editions) by Carmelo Militano

Morning After You is an articulate and deeply human new poetry collection by novelist and poet Carmelo Militano. Militano writes in a variety of styles: confessional, free verse, lyric, personal monologue, long poem, and prose poem. Each style is dense with sensual and evocative detail regardless of whether he is describing a city landscape, the sky, or the body of a woman. Militano’s poems also celebrate and mediate and seek to capture the complicated dual reality of being and seeing from two cultural perspectives. Militano’s use of direct language, image, and subtle ironic tone combine to create a unique and fresh voice in Canadian letters.

Tarnished Trophies (Black Moss Press) by Debbie Okun Hill

In her first book of poetry, Debbie Okun Hill leaps from the bleachers into the light and shadow of the sports world. Mixed with the poetic portraits of sweat…the thirst for first…and the juicy taste of orange victory are the metaphorical snapshots of tarnished men and women, the unrewarded failures, and the need to reflect. Tarnished Trophies wrestles the athletic soul: this essence of winning and losing, loving and changing, growing and shaping.

THE PUBLISHERS (in alphabetical order):

Black Moss Press

Since it was founded in 1969, Black Moss Press has built a national reputation for its contribution to Canadian literature. Black Moss has published more than 400 first editions and introduced more than 100 new authors to the Canadian literary scene.

Ekstasis Editions

Ekstasis Editions is a Canadian literary publisher, with emphasis on poetry, fiction and criticism. Since its founding in 1982, Ekstasis Editions has published over 200 titles.

Turnstone Press

Founded in a Winnipeg pub in 1976 to publish chapbooks by Manitoba poets, Turnstone Press has become one of the most highly regarded book publishers in western Canada, publishing not only poetry but also fiction, literary criticism and non-fiction.

Additional Manitoba events have been scheduled for May. See my 2015 tour schedule here.

Watch this blog for information about the Great Canadian PoeTrain Tour! A Winnipeg stopover has been recently added for Sunday, April 19. See you there!