Kindred Trees

Kindred Trees asks Canberra poets to write in response to a local tree. It started in early 2019 and will develop over the next decade, growing slowly, with poems being added each year. Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello, who was one of the first poets commissioned, wrote the poem Kindred, and gave permission for her title to inspire the name of this project. Kindred Trees also sprouted from associations with Tree Week, and That Poetry Thing That is on at Smith’s Every Monday, and Smith’s Alternative (which provides a supportive venue for live poetry in Canberra). 

Kindred Trees wants to encourage love of trees through poetry. The website is a living document which will change in time as more poems, poets, and trees are added. Many trees represented here are on the ACT Tree register, some are trees that have just captured their poet’s heart and may sometimes be across the border, but we can imagine the trees talking to each other. There are some trees of elsewhere – of travels, memory, or the past.

Seeds

Left: Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello - A smiling woman with short dark hair. Right: A magnificent Ribbon Gum which makes all else seem small, including the corner of a house in the left hand corner, and bushes. We see it against a clear blue sky. It has a great deal of ribbon bark collected at its base.

Kindred Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello

Left: Kate McNamara - A woman in a green dress reclining on a couch in a happy pose. Right: A Brittle Gum with a very unusual growing habit, its white trunk is lying across the ground, then rising in a regular position, it looks like a big snake. It is very unusual.

Tree as Cosmos Kate McNamara

Left: Robert Verdon - A man with long grey hair and a scarf sits on a bench. Right: A big Swamp Oak with beautiful light and green leaves on the corner of a suburban street. The side of an iconic Canberra bus stop can be seen just in the lower left corner of the picture.

no one ever Robert Verdon

Left: Judith Nangala Crispin - A woman standing outside (at the Australian National University), against a dark background, she has dark shoulder length hair, and is wearing a black leather jacket, and jeans, and looks strong. The background shows parts of her lumen artwork, we see the head and beak of a bird in the top left hand corner. Right: Judith's photograph shows finely focused hills covered in scrubby vegetation taking up the whole circular frame and at the bottom of the hill is a white boab, our impression is the tree (which would be huge) seems small against the hills.

The Boabs Judith Nangala Crispin

Left: Paul Collis A smiling man with short dark hair in a black and white photo. Right: A beautiful eucalypt in grasslands. It's branches in a couple of places show they have been shaped by a person when it was a young tree, to create a small window that if you looked through it would indicate a direction to walk.

Wita Witalana Paul Collis

Left: Sue Donnelly - A smiling woman with short white hair and a white polo neck jumper rolled up around her neck. Right: A very large Red Gum situated on a corner park in a suburb. It has multiple trunks at the base with a hollow where a person could sit, and a very long branch at human height on one side.

Red Gum (Eucalyptus Blakelyi)
Sue Donnelly

Left: Kathy Kituai - A woman smiling sitting at a table at a dinner party, she has been caught in a happy moment Right: A huge Ribbon Gum rises high above a backyard fence and houses behind it agains a light blue sky.

Ribbon Bark Tree Kathy Kituai

Left: Audrey McCormick - A young woman with shoulder length light brown hair. She is smiling and standing against a leafy background that fills the frame. Right: A single tall Ash tree outside Black Mountain Girl Guide Hall, a modest brick hall next to a paddock in a suburb. The tree is a little dry with only a few pale green leaves. It looks like a good climbing tree with strong spread out branches.

Patchy Shade Audrey McCormick

Left: Sarah Rice - A smiling woman with short grey curly hair a white peaked cap and glasses, and in the background is vivid red Autumn maple trees. Right: A huge white trunked spreading Eucalypt with a round crown in mid distance; its deep sweeping shadow below.

Tree Sarah Rice

Left: Sarah Rice - A smiling woman with short grey curly hair a white peaked cap and glasses, and in the background is vivid red Autumn maple trees. Right: White trunked trees entwined with the sun enfolded in their branches.

Lovers Sarah Rice

Left: Sarah St Vincent Welch - A smiling woman with shoulder length grey hair, pink at the front, with glasses, wearing a maroon jacket, her arms open, with a leafy backdrop. Right: Almost a silhouette of a Pinus radiata double trunk the sun glinting where the trunks join. It is a little surreal, almost ominous, though some have said the tree looks like it is doing a handstand, so the mood of the image can be interpreted in many ways. Perhaps it is a little wistful.

for Pinus radiata tree in Haig Park, Canberra Sarah St Vincent Welch

Branches

Baribun / Dream Samia Goudie

Left: Tree. Right: Image of S. K. Kelen.

Bird Diary S. K. Kelen

Left: Tree. Right: Image of Lizz Murphy.
The Power of Prayer / The Hand of Prayer
Lizz Murphy

Left: Tree. Right: Image of Tony Williams.

Branching Out Tony Steven Williams


Georgian and Inter-War Mediterranean Sentiment
Jacqui Malins

Mycelial Amanda McLeod

Whisperings C E Collins

Eucalyptus camaldulensis Jen Webb

Chemical blue gum Shehzad Hathi

Leaves

Friend Samantha Faulkner

The Gift of Giving Hazel Hall


my tree and my heart
Hangama Obaidullah

Blossoming Gums Andrew Cox

Persian Silk Tree Asefe Abedini

In expectation of a cemetery that was never built Penelope Layland