Pablo of Roundrock Journal and I have decided to launch a blog carnival devoted to trees — a Festival of the Trees. This will be a monthly gathering of blog links, similar to the Circus of the Spineless for invertebrates. The first installment will be here at Via Negativa on July 1. Please submit links to me at bontasaurus (at) yahoo (dot) com, with “Festival of the Trees” in the subject line, no later than June 30. All posts should have appeared during the month of June. We’ll inaugurate a coordinating blog in late June or early July to archive links to blog hosts, announce upcoming hosts, and blogroll participants.
For the purposes of the Festival, we’re defining trees as any woody plant that regularly exceeds three meters in height, though exceptions might be made to accommodate things like banana “trees” or bonsai. We are interested in trees in the concrete rather than in the abstract, so while stories about a particular forest would be welcome, newsy pieces about forest issues probably wouldn’t be. Our emphasis should be on original content; we don’t want to link to pieces that are 90% or more recycled from other authors or artists.
The Festival of the Trees seeks:
- original photos or artwork featuring trees
- original essays, stories or poems about trees
- audio and video of trees
- news items about trees (especially the interesting and the off-beat)
- philosophical and religious perspectives on trees and forests
- scientific and conservation-minded perspectives on trees and forests
- kids’ drawings of trees
- dreams about trees
- trees’ dreams about us
- people who hug trees
- people who make things out of trees
- big trees
- small trees
- weird or unusual trees
- sexy trees
- tree houses
- animals that live in, pollinate, or otherwise depend on trees
- lichens, fungi or bacteria that parasitize or live in mutualistic relationships with trees
I look forward to reading your submissions soon!
This is such a brilliant idea, and I particularly love the inclusion of audio. I know you don’t hug trees but if you ever climb a tree try putting your ear to the body of the branch you’re balancing on and listen. Not to the accessible sound of the susurration of leaves but to the beat and creak of the beast itself. Unfortunately I think it would be difficult to record.
You can hear that in a high wind without even climbing the tree. I’ve pressed my ear to oaks on the ridgetop more than once. The smaller the tree, the more noise they make – kind of like kids.
this is such a COOL idea- I’ll definitely be submitting and will put my name on this list to host.. without trees, so many living creatures would not exist, including ourselves.
MONEY REALLY DOES GROW ON TREES…………