Naked Trees

Bob Lincoln is Head of the Acquisitions Department at the University of
Manitoba Libraries.

There is a particular empathy in these prose poems about city trees, or
at least, trees that exist in neighborhoods with people, rather than
trees in the bush. Terpstra sees trees as having a purpose and a life
unto themselves. Even after they are cut and crafted into furniture,
their essence and behavior remain.

Terpstra’s poems both avoid personification and court it; a tree is
“As one who is called both to the centre of the earth and to the
sun.” They are marked by a singleness of purpose: to instruct the
reader as to the purpose and beauty of trees. He sees a link between
those who plant trees and those who live long enough to talk about how
these trees were planted. Wind is explained, with a child’s logic, by
declaring that trees must make the wind because that is where one
notices the wind. Trees are ships that fill their sail-like branches
with wind.

The poems weave a story without becoming pedantic or overly
sentimental. This collection is one person’s affirmation of the links
among root, stem, and sky, and our memories beside them.