Tell It To The Trees

‘Tell It To The Trees’ is a collaborative project bringing together poetry, video, music and sound design. Commissioned poets wrote poems inspired by their visit to a small, three-acre woodland site at Scammonden, West Yorkshire, planted in winter 2005-6 by voluntary tree planting group, Colne Valley Tree Society.

After their initial visit, the poets returned and were filmed performing their poems in the woodland. Accompanying original music for a trio of alto flute (doubling piccolo), bass clarinet and viola was also recorded on site. The music is based on a dawn recording in the woodland of the lilting song of the willow warbler, a migratory bird that winters in sub-Saharan Africa, returning in spring to the young woodlands they prefer.

Though in some cases the poems’ relationship to the woodland is quite abstracted from it, tree planting, a slowly maturing young oak woodland and the mini bio-diverse world it is engendering, as well as the need for such places and spaces for ours’ and the planet’s well-being, underpin the project.

Film and music by Geoffrey Cox
Music performed by Tracey Smurthwaite, Jennifer Moss and David Milsom
Music recordings by Alex Harker, assisted by Simon Connor
Part-funded by Arts Council England

Poets in order of appearance: Michael Stewart, Gaia Holmes, Natalie Holborow, Stephen Ely, Kirsten Norrie, Gail McConnell, Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Gerry Cambridge, Safia Khan.