For centuries we have projected our lives onto those of gods, animals, objects. And: onto those of trees. ‘Gnome trees’, we call giants with a hollow at the base. Under a linden tree many hundreds of years old, we place an honorable plaque with the sigh: ‘If only this tree could talk’.
Trees mirror our lives, discovered the poet Leo Mesman. Those who have an eye for it see trees in love quietly kissing each other in forests. That’s what they’re called: ‘Kissing Trees’. They are trees that have grown against each other and formed two knots in the shape of thick lips there.
Many years after making this collection, I even encountered a tree on the island of Phu Quoc in Vietnam on a steep mountain that was kissing an enormous boulder. Perhaps to prevent the stone from sinking further down and dragging it along? (Yes, trees are masculine, according to the Dutch dictionary Van Dale).
Or that beech in Alphen, Noord-Brabant, which swallowed a meadow post in its growth. The local population saw that proudly raised post and called the tree carnivalesque ‘The Thick-Dick-Beech’.
A message to the world
There is even a word for this phenomenon of projecting human feelings onto non-humans: anthropomorphism. When making this collection in 2011, Mesman and I were therefore ‘anthropomorphists’. And that is a word that is not in the dictionaries.
We also felt like co-creators with a message to the world.
Just like people, trees also go through a life cycle. We are born, they emerge in spring. When the end comes, we hope to live on in thoughts, in books, in music, in photos or paintings. They as wooden utensils or also as art expression. In the past more often than today. Unfortunately. That is exactly what this website Wowwood tries to change something about.
The end of times
This collection of poems and portraits of trees is a collection of declarations of love. But at the same time it is also a warning. If we don’t stop our war with nature very soon, one evil day trees will overgrow the ruins of our civilization. There are examples of this too, such as the strangler figs in the temple complex Siem Reap in Cambodia. I took photos of those mighty roots. They force you to think about the end of times.
Leo and I inspired each other in turn. Leo usually gave me ideas with a new or existing poem. Conversely, I sometimes inspired him with a photo that I took during wanderings with my Scottish collie Gwenn. Some texts were made by both of us and therefore have two authors.
One more explanation after 10 years
Compassion is inspired by an anonymous poem with the same title, set to music by Nathalie Merchant on her CD ‘Leave your sleep’.
Tree is a ‘retranslation’ of the poem ‘Trees’ by the American poet Joyce Kilmer (1886 – 1918) from the collection ‘Trees and Other Poems’.
This PDF is a penultimate design for the final printed book, which is completely sold out and has not been reprinted. However, it can still be ordered from Blurb, in luxury edition.
Remarkably, now, more than ten years after publication, interest in anthropomorphism directed at trees has grown much greater. On Facebook, there are even international pages with collections of special trees from all over the world, which sometimes even take the form of an enormous devil, with widely outstretched claws. Or trees that are much more explicitly erotic than the photo of the tree with breasts and buttocks that I took in the dunes of Domburg, Zeeland.
Jan Bom, March 10, 2022
