Just in time for Earth Day and Poetry Month, the participants of the Environment Book Club hosted by Gathering Ground in collaboration with Fair Isle Books,  Write On Door County, and Washington Island Library have selected the next title for their April 25 meeting: a collection of poems Thinking with Trees by Jason Allen-Paisant, a Jamaican poet now living and teaching in London. 

The nature poem and the rambling walking poem are poetic forms with a long history, but were very popular with English Romantic poets. Poet Allen-Paisant that he plays with these conceits as he reconsiders his own idyllic childhood in a totally different landscape with a totally different relationship to the land. 

For those who may be intimidated by reading poetry because it’s too hard to understand, Alessandra Rolffs, executive director of Gathering Ground, who happens to hold a PhD and MFA in English and poetry, says not to worry. 

“Most poems aren’t meant to be solved like math problems,” says Rolffs. “They are something to experience. Let the images and words fall over your senses as you read them. What does the poem feel like? What do you see? What does it remind you of?”

She also encourages hesitant readers to take a look at Allen-Paisant’s essay in Poetry Nation Review, Blackness and Landscape, in which the author talks about why and how he wrote the poems in this collection. In it he writes, “I realised, as I express in the poem, ‘Walking with the Word “Tree,”’ that for my family, nature was functional. As farmers, my grandparents shaped the land, waited for its yields, saw their living as connected to the earth. They were not contemplators of scenery; their hands were in the earth.” This theme of nature being a place for work versus recreation is something Gathering Ground has deeply considered in its own farming and is excited to gain new perspective from the discussion of this book. 

Deb Wayman of Fair Isle Books is offering four free copies of the book. One will go into the Gathering Ground Library at Aznoe Farm and the other three will be gifted to the first three readers who email Rolffs at alessandra@gatheringgroundwi.org. You can find all the books selected by this book club on Fair Isle’s Gathering Ground Book list. 

The next meeting will be held on Saturday, April 25, at 2 pm at Gathering Ground’s Aznoe Farm (1249 Aznoe Road) and on Zoom (LINK HERE). If the participants and weather are game, Rolffs may even lead the group in writing some of their own walking nature poems. 

The book club meets quarterly on the fourth Saturday in October, January and April. Due to the busyness of summer, the summer book club date will change based on other events. Join the Gathering Ground newsletter to stay up-to-date. This event is free but freewill donations are always welcome to help support Gathering Ground’s programs. 

About Gathering Ground

Gathering Ground, a nonprofit founded in 2016, strives to build on Door County’s rich agricultural history and support a thriving local food system that engages and connects people of all ages to nature, community, and healthy food. We believe that connecting people to the land and where food comes creates transformative experiences and inspire action. Join us in planting for the future. www.gatheringgroundwi.org. 

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