Rooted in Words: An Interview with Professor Elkins about her Poetree
by Peyton Williamson ’27
Fresh from a new move over the summer, Professor Amy Elkins, inspired by all kinds of community engagement activities, decided to start posting poems on a hackberry tree in front of her house. What started as a fun undertaking quickly became a lovely way of assimilating into her neighborhood and spreading the poems’ impact into more unexpected places. The Words had a chance to interview her and learn a little bit about what inspired the project and how it has grown since it began.
What inspired you to start this project?
I love Little Libraries, public murals, and other community arts and literature projects. I moved over the summer and felt a strong sense of community in my new neighborhood, and I was thinking of ways to share things I care about with my new neighbors. I’d initially thought I might create a gumball machine that dispenses tiny poems or artworks, but I kept running into problems with logistics. Then, one day kind of out of nowhere, the idea for a Poetree popped into my head! I had a medium-sized tree in front of my house on the boulevard, and I thought, ah ha…that could be just the place for sharing a poem each week.
How did you come up with the idea of combining poetry with nature in this way?
I love poems and books about trees. One of my favorite books is Casting Deep Shade by C.D. Wright. It’s a sort of poetic, memoir, research project on beech trees, and it’s a huge volume with gorgeous photographs by Denny Moers. I love nature poetry, and I love reading poetry in nature. The Poetree creates an unexpected encounter with really good poems.
How do you go about selecting the poems you include? Do you choose specific themes for the poems, or do they reflect things like your thoughts, experiences, or the season?
I’m very intentional about the poems I select (and I take requests through my mail slot!). The first poem I selected was Ada Limón’s “It’s the Season I Often Mistake,” which is about early fall and a speaker who feels herself both overwhelmed by and in awe of “the perpetual / scattering that unspools the world.” The poem mentions a hackberry tree, which is what the Poetree is.
I also had fun with the Halloween poems, such as “Song of the Witches” from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Double, double toil and trouble.” But the poems I select are sometimes more serious or political. After the election, I posted Mary Oliver’s “Of the Empire” and local poet Danez Smith’s “Little Prayer.” Poems that both comfort and get you in the gut at the same time.
Have you noticed any impact on your local community or neighborhood since starting this project?
I post a new poem each Sunday, and I’ve heard from neighbors, even some I don’t know or haven’t met in person, when a particular poems resonates with them. I also had a friend on the East Coast reach out to ask about starting a Poetree at her house! Part of the beauty of the project is that it’s simply an offering. In many ways, I can’t know what sort of impact it’s having, but I enjoy the process of sharing poems with enduring messages of hope, love, grief, determination, friendship, et cetera. I did think it was funny, though….one of my neighbors asked for shorter poems through the winter season so that they can keep moving on their walks!
What has been the most rewarding thing about the project for you?
When I see someone stopping to read! I’ve seen just about every age of person, from a kid skidding up to the tree on his bike to elderly folks moving slow, spending time at the Poetree, and it always makes me feel that the world, in a small way, is a slightly better place.
The Words would like to thank Professor Elkins for taking the time to chat, and we look forward to reading more wonderful poems!