The Afterlife of Trees

Susan McKnight is an administrator of the Courts Technology Integrated Justice Project at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

Brian Bartlett teaches at St. Mary’s University in Halifax and is the
author of two previous collections of poetry, Granite Erratics (1997)
and Underwater Carpentry (1993). In The Afterlife of Trees, he conveys
through his gentle vignettes a deep understanding of the natural
world—an understanding that provides a soothing counterbalance to the
hectic, technologically overwrought world of today. Bartlett’s
compassion for the underdog, his humane and personal perspective, bring
comfort too. By turns pithy and expansive, the poems in The Afterlife of
Trees run the gamut, in terms of their subject matter, from Buster
Keaton films to an ironic look at the new millennium. One of this
poet’s primary strengths is his ability to bridge the human and
natural worlds with humour and quiet eloquence.