Elegy for the Trees

… No harm indeed, I said. You’ve played fate’s hand. Your trees are all that stay of that fine stand… (From Mountain Ash II)

Cindy Ellen Hill’s first poem in Elegy for the Trees vows to sing for trees. Her tightly-crafted poems do exactly that. We witness specific species of trees mostly native to eastern North America through the ravages of deforestation, wildland fires, ramped-up development, climate change, blight and trees driven to extinction by non-native predators. Her poetry songs often follow a fourteen-line tradition that includes the phrasing of Celtic and Skaldic meters and Greek elegiac couplets. She invokes an ancient alphabet to help us understand what trees illustrate of ecological awareness and mycorrhizal communication. She reminds us of what we need to think about now more than ever, how we can honor the memories of trees. Finally, her imperative: go plant a tree.

-Tricia Knoll, Checkered Mates

Cindy Ellen Hill’s second book of sonnets, Elegy For The Trees, explores the life and death of trees. The whole work is infused with the impermanence and the importance of trees. Not content with solely classical forms, she blends in ancient eddic and druidic themes with wonderful results. These extraordinary sonnets are most skillfully worked. Hill is a true sister in spirit to Danu, Flidais, Gaia, and many, many dryads. -Dan Close, What the Abenaki Say About Dogs

Cindy Ellen Hill, poet, invites the reader into her forest of trees, closely observed. Her knowledgeable play with sonnet form and theme causes them to intertwine magically, compellingly, to lead through a gathering of portraits of individual trees and threatened tree species. Her collection of poems, beginning to end, is a gift.
-Kathleen McKinley Harris, Earth Striders