Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

Seven tree poems

Mandy Haggith

Mandy an acclaimed poet and novelist born and raised in Haggith is

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.

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