Naked Trees

Naked Trees is a meditation on urban trees. It explores the life and death of these trees and the people who live with them. We see the trees through the eyes of a child, who finds her tree friendly and inviting, or view the tree's life through the thoughts of a leaf, promised flight, but denied it by the capricious wind. Terpstra finishes the collection with a section on varieties, composed of poems on individual tree types such as prunus serotina and utility pole.

John Terpstra has published seven books of poetry, including the CG-nominated Disarmament and the Bressani Award-winning Forty Days & Forty Nights. Most recently he published The Boys, Or, Waiting For the Electrician's Daughter, which was shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize and the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. John Terpstra lives in Hamilton, Ontario, where he works as a writer and cabinetmaker.