Poetry Train Monday - 122 - A Tune For The Tree

With eleven more Poetry Monday's to go to finish up the year, I've got eleven final found poems to create for my year-long challenge. It's been an amazing learning experience for me, especially when I've reduced a prose piece from one of my WIP's. I already know I'm going to create brand new poems next year by first writing them as prose, and then finding the poem within.

Here is a poem that jumped out at me this morning from a short article in the paper.














A Tune For The Tree

Otis Tomas has a very special stash of wood
It comes from one grand old maple tree
For hundreds of years it stood along a road in Goose Cove
A tiny hamlet on Cape Breton's Cabot Trail

One grand old maple tree

Its wood has become the tie that binds a unique family
A family of stringed instruments he's crafted
Violins, viola, cello
Arch-top guitar, tenor guitar, mandolin
And harp

Special stash of wood

Otis admired the impressive tree
For some time

He hesitated
To do anything
To disturb it

The instrument maker in him
Saw something special
In the maple
"So finally
I went up there and cut the thing down"

The instrument maker in him

Just before he did
Otis took out his fiddle
He played a tune for the tree

"We're going to play that tune
At the concert
So it's kinda come full circle since then"

The Fiddle Tree show takes place on Monday
As part of the Celtic Colours International Festival
The show will feature Otis on fiddle
Guitarist Paul MacDonald from Cape Breton
Fiddler and composer Paul Cranford, also from Cape Breton
Abby Newton from the United States
Laoise Kelly from Ireland
Mairi Campbell and Sarah McFadyen from Scotland

Each instrument used during the show
Has been made by Otis
Of wood from that towering tree
He cut down fifteen years ago

The Fiddle Tree family of instruments
Violin, viola, cello
Arch-top guitar, mandolin
And harp

"I've made fifteen or so instruments from that tree
And there will be seven or eight of them in the show"

Unique family
Special stash of wood
Full circle
One grand old maple tree

- Laura Jean Grant, The Canadian Press, 2009



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Gel says I've given that advice in the poetry workshops I teach (finding poetry in your prose.) This piece flows like a folk tale, full of love and description.

Anthony North says Love what you did with it.

Michelle Johnson says I enjoyed the true story quality and how that one tree meant enough to this guy to turn it into something even more unique.