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Seven tree poems
Mandy Haggith
Mandy
Haggith
is
an
acclaimed poet and novelist
born
and
raised
in
Northumberland, who has
lived in a coastal wooded croft
in Assynt, in the northwest highlands of Scotland, since
1999.
Her forest-related work has ranged from research for the
Centre for International Forestry Research, to helping
community organisations create visions and management
plans for their land. She has lobbied at the United Nations,
and for international environmental organisations such as
Greenpeace, WWF, Fern and Taiga Rescue Network.
The A-B-Tree project from which these poems derive is a
celebration of the ancient cultural connection between
nature and words embodied in the Gaelic Tree Alphabet. Its
inception involved 18 public events, one for each letter,
using the trees as inspiration, blending folklore and
ecology.