This capstone project for Emerson College’s Graduate Certificate in Publishing course is a collection of poetry dedicated to trees.
Inspired by the astronaut Stuart Roosa, who carried tree seeds to the moon in 1971, and the staff and campers at Camp Koch Girl Scouts Camp, who tend their Moon Tree carefully season after season where it grows in Cannelton, Indiana, the book celebrates the connection people have to trees, and in particular, those who found words and images to express this deep bond. Each poem is illustrated with a matching photograph on its facing page. Some photos found their way to specific poems, some poems paired themselves with specific photos. It was an exercise in staying out of the way.
While the book represents only a small fraction of what people have to say, featured poets include John Muir, Mary Oliver, Octavio Paz, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, Walt Whitman, Marge Piercy, Langston Hughes, Dana Gioia, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Naomi Shihab Nye, to name a few.
As the book is a graduate level project, it is unpublished in current form.