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Voice of Trees -Tallahassee
Through the Voice of Trees – Tallahassee sound walk, you’ll discover local poets who pay homage to Cascades Park, one of the City of Tallahassee’s gems
By following the route on the Echoes app, visitors will hear a selection of original poems read aloud by the poets themselves.
Each poem represents a different location within Cascades Park and encourages visitors to discover spots for quiet contemplation. Inspired by the monumental trees and surrounding landscape, these poems serve as a celebration of the unique features of the area. From Smokey Hollow Pond to Centennial Field, visitors can explore the city’s history while enjoying its natural beauty.
Included in this sound walk are original poems by local poets Summer Hill Seven, Terri Carrion, Michael Rothenberg, and Virgil Suárez.
Poems & Poets
Download the free Echoes app featuring the Voice of Trees – Tallahassee
Autumn is summer’s
Raisin surviving in time
To see Sun’s decline
Fruit Tree Blues by Summer Hill Seven
Birds, bees, flowers &
Caterpillars & Poet
Trees with strange blue fruit.
Summer Hill Seven is a father, filmmaker and writer. He founded the Poemedy Institute which is dedicated to studying, teaching, and exploring the art & science of eloquence. His 2nd book, Hang Time: A Poetic Memoir is dedicated to the black men in America who have not and will not reach the age of forty. Seven’s latest book is Squircular: An Actor’s Tale which is a memoir about the journey to becoming an artist after life as a American corporate attorney. He is known for inventing the artform of poemedy, a blend of theater, hip-hop, and spoken word. Seven uses his platform at the Poemedy Institute to teach eloquence in spoken language and writing as an alternative to violence.
As a proud alumnus of Philip Schuyler Elementary School in Albany, NY, Sister Clara Muhammad School in Philadelphia, Princeton University, Richard Stockton University, University of Delaware and The New York University, School of Law, Seven’s mission is to use the Poemedy Institute to share the joy of learning, creativity and eloquence.
For Joanne Kyger, who always wore rose colored glasses
My shadow between vines on the oaks
In the rosy reflection of sunrise
I follow three pink cloud patches
That drift past the greening cypress
The cardinals cry out for a mate
Tangled up in Spanish moss and berries
And the azaleas explode all around me
In pure magenta magnificence.
Terri Carrion is a first generation American conceived in Venezuela and born in New York to a Galician mother and Cuban father. She earned her MFA from Florida International University. Her poetry, fiction, non-fiction and photography has appeared and disappeared in print and online, including in The Cream City Review, Hanging Loose, Pearl, Penumbra, Exquisite Corpse, Mangrove, Jack, Mipoesia, and Dead Drunk Dublin. Terri Carrion is co-founder of the global grassroots movement 100 Thousand Poets for Change, is on the Board of Directors of the advocacy group Friends of Lake Jackson, and is President of Anhinga Press. She lives on Lake Jackson.
Sun hidden by ravine and mist
Forest hungry for rain
I knew about this
and almost set it right
against the thorny brambles
and desiccated fennel
Broach of deliverance
Bent against summer
latitudes. The sung note
Horrific claims of heat
lightning. The solitude
Moon coming back over
the oak forest. Tangerine
moon as full as love
There is no better answer
than to reply in kind
In mammal need. That is
what falls as I take
a breath of light. Coyote’s
yip-yip howl and late
surrender to the limpkin’s
reassuring cry.
Michael Rothenberg is a poet, songwriter, editor, and environmentalist. Rothenberg received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in Poetics at New College of California. In 1976, he began Shelldance Orchid Gardens, an orchid and bromeliad nursery. He later co-founder Big Bridge Press, a fine print literary press. Rothenberg is editor of Big Bridge, a webzine of poetry, as well as the co-editor and co-founder of Jack Magazine. In 2011, Rothenberg and his partner Terri Carrion co-founded 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a global poetry and arts movement with an emphasis on peace, justice, sustainability and education. He currently serves as the Florida State University Libraries Poet in Residence.
In memory of Jerome H. Stern
It’s astounding how from nothing
comes the blush of so many flowers,
Bees doing their work, birds perched
on tree branches admiring the rush
of water, the possibility of surprising
an unsuspecting worm, a morsel
to nourish their offspring. October’s
crisp air is upon us, and for the jogger
it is refreshing and energizing. I am
in the middle of a city coming to terms
with its history of how one brick kisses
another brick to lay the foundation
of the new, something far reaching
and ageless. That sound you hear is your
own heart beat picking up the pace, inhale
and walk on as if this were the most beautiful
place on earth, and you eternally belong here.
Virgil Suárez is a Professor in the English Department at Florida State University. He holds an MFA from Louisiana State University and specializes in creative writing (fiction and poetry) and Latino/a (especially Cuban-American) literature. Poet, essayist, novelist, and short story writer, Professor Suarez is the author or co-author of over fifteen books of poetry and prose. His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, The New England Review, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Poetry New Zealand, Imago (Australia), The Toronto Review (Canada), The Barcelona Review (Spain), Ploughshares, and many others nationally and internationally. His latest book is 90 Miles (Selected & New Poems), University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. His work was featured in the W.W. Norton Anthology of Latino/a Literature, 2010.