<\/p>\n
It was a tightly fought contest and from a dark and sombre shortlist, Sally Beets’ wonderfully caustic ‘Tree Surgery’ emerged as the overall winner and Pick of the Month for October. Maybe we all just needed to vent!<\/p>\n
Sally is a poet and Young Adult fiction writer. She is completing a Masters in Children\u2019s Literature and Creative writing at Goldsmiths University where she has had several pieces published in student publications.\u00a0 She has worked as a teacher in the past and is involved in various local literacy charities and projects based in London.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tree Surgery<\/strong><\/p>\n I was growing tired of trees, already, Everything comes back to trees: breath, literature, doors: the Your favourite is the Oak. Like you, I thought: I retain knowledge against my will, on how to *****<\/p>\n Voters’ comments included:<\/p>\n An extraordinary poem with alarming and poignant imagery.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Painful yet beautiful. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n I especially like the way, in this poem, the poet creates very painterly bucolic scenes with an economy of language. I also like the depiction of common everyday activities which are suddenly shot through with darker notes. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Brilliantly combines the allusive with the particular – the poem draws you in as it opens out. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n I like trees and this poem takes a surprising way to show us what the title means with respect to a relationships – both literally & figuratively.<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a tightly fought contest and from a dark and sombre shortlist, Sally Beets’ wonderfully caustic ‘Tree Surgery’ emerged as the overall winner and Pick of the Month for October. Maybe we all just needed to vent! Sally is a poet and Young Adult fiction writer. She is completing a Masters in Children\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-poetry-picks","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12612"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12618,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612\/revisions\/12618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nbefore the end. Tired of going to nature reserves, forests,
\nwoods, with your tree index book, looking up words in
\nLatin: Quercuis ilex, rubra, robur,
\nchasing after your over-excitable stinking dogs,
\nthat muddied and laddered my tights,
\nor worse, when you produced that battered bat detector.<\/p>\n
\nfurniture of life. Your calloused hands
\nalways smelt and felt like bark,
\nyour hair too \u2013 that space between your neck and
\nhairline, it was like that forest in Centre Parcs
\nwhere we went together, and then I alone, \u2018escaping\u2019,
\n(my chest tight in the healthy air)
\n\u2013 fresh, smelling faintly of damp sweat from
\na freezing wrapped up winter walk.<\/p>\n
\nclassic, strong, reliable. You, the least complicated of men\/
\nEven trees understand you \u2013
\nLike the one you climbed in Epping Forest
\nand shouted from that you were king of the world, while
\nI refused to join in.
\nI\u2019ve always liked willows: reflective, flexible, lazy.
\nLike the one where we had that perfect Indian Summer
\npicnic and made love next to cows in the stream, there was a
\nwedding just beyond the hedge.<\/p>\n
\nfell or pollard a tree. I know that they go into shock,
\nhow they heal themselves, how you studied that tree
\nlike an archaeologist, in Grace\u2019s garden in Essex,
\ntwisted like hair, it wormed its way in and
\nout of the ground, how you found a body
\nhanged from a tree in Hampstead Heath.<\/p>\n