What I Learned from the Trees by L.E. Bowman
What I Learned from the Trees by L.E. Bowman
Paperback: 192 pgs
Publisher: Button Poetry (2021)
Purchase @ Button Poetry
Paperback: 192 pgs
Publisher: Button Poetry (2021)
Purchase @ Button Poetry
Review by Meagan Pusser.
L.E. Bowman is no stranger to stories of change and reflection, as shown in the sense of self and identity displayed in her first poetry collection, The Evolution of a Girl. But what is to be said of connections beyond the intimate bond with the self? How do humans relate to their surroundings, to the natural world that we seem to stray farther from every year? This is where her second collection, What I Learned from the Trees, differs. Instead of looking inward to understand a place of belonging, What I Learned from the Trees explores the similarly complicated relationship between humans and nature that will feel warm and familiar to anyone who has found themselves spending too much time in the comfort of the indoors as an adult.
Much of Bowman’s second collection reminded me of the towering pecan tree in my grandparents’ backyard. As my cousins and I raced outside to climb it, my grandma yelled after us, “Don’t hurt yourselves!” I never paid this any mind. I thought I was invincible, a belief destroyed by a trip over a gnarled root and a shattered wrist. As I healed, I only got close enough to look up into the branches and imagine the irreparable damage that could come from tumbling from the top. Even when the cast was gone, I couldn’t face the pain. I watched from the ground, growing leery of nature just as quickly as I fell in love with it.
To a kid, nature is simultaneously awe-inspiring and terrifying. As we grow up, the negative aspects of life creep into happy memories, overriding joyous moments with darkened edges of anxiety. Soon enough, we are so afraid of breaking that we forget how often nature heals itself. We also forget that we are part of nature, part of a process of breaking and building back. In Bowman’s reasoning, this adult understanding of the world leads us on a desperate search to resolve a sense of broken loneliness. It’s not human nature that leaches our desire to run to embrace the breaking, rather:
“It’s the detachment that does it,
that turns us into a lone tree in a forest
struggling for light.”
With this realization, Bowman’s speaker embarks on an existential journey, venturing back into the woods, literally and figuratively, where they eventually realize that our fear of nature is what locks it away in the dusty, forgotten corners of our minds.
While many poets use nature to symbolize life and creation, Bowman’s nature holds a magnifying glass to death and destruction. Several pieces in this collection contemplate roadkill, circling the realization that the most horrifying aspect of seeing a carcass on the side of the road is not the life lost but “how we drive over bodies and don’t even/care enough to count.” With this shift in perspective, the magnifying glass turns from death to how we think about life. Why do we drive past roadkill? Where is the reverence? Are animal lives any less worthy than human lives? What does it say about us we even have to ask that question?
Certain parts of the collection feel detached, almost like venturing into the city. In Part I, the speaker struggles to heal from a lost love, which extends to other losses in Part II-IV, but some pieces strain the natural theme. In “My current obsession is ‘fitness,’” the speaker reflects on social media’s impact on body image, calling on voices that claim,
“Fat girl, you are not big boned
You are not hypothyroid
You are not genetically burdened.”
It feels strange to read a piece about the carefully synthesized world of social media in a collection centered on the grit of nature. The collective outside voice will resonate with anyone who tries to block it out with excuses for their shortcomings, but the digital setting feels strange when set against the organic elements and characters in the rest of the collection.
Bowman’s style is consistent, with very few poems that venture into experimental territory—but the poems that mix it up shine the brightest. In “Things that make me feel alive,” the speaker embraces all of the things that remind them of their beating heart in the style of Sei Shōnagan. “Yearning” offers an epigraph-like opening that defines the word for the rest of the poem, whose verses are set off by slash marks to create a punctuated feeling with lines like,
“the heat / the need / the craving/ the way clouds become heavy before
they burst / the way light gives way to night so calmly / the way
darkness means rebirth.”
Both pieces are set apart from the rest of the collection without distracting from the collection's overall fluidity, showing that Bowman is more than capable of toying with different forms without losing the theme. The varying voices underlying these experimental and tribute poems show the natural interconnectedness of humanity. It’s a shame What I Learned From the Trees doesn’t venture into further risks to play with other patterns and forms.
Through a cycle of breaking and healing, the speaker embraces nature. After a series of difficult questions, their relationship with nature begins to heal as they realize that they may not be as far above it as they had once believed, a realization that comes in the breathtaking lines:
“You cannot truly see something
If you believe you are above it.
Emotions. People. Creatures.
The earth.”
Despite what we want to think, humans are not above nature. Humans are part of nature, a place where some things don’t happen for a reason, but that doesn’t mean our pain is pointless. These are the lessons we can learn from nature and start to heal some of our deepest wounds. As we leave the forest, we greet the trees, and they ask:
“Did you remember who you are?
Human? Yes.
But also, animal.”
Even if the human side wants us to think we are wholly self-sufficient, the animal side relies on a pack. Other people can’t fix us, but they can help soothe the sting while we let nature take its play its part in the healing process.
Just like Bowman’s trees, my experience with the pecan tree taught me that half of the joy of living is embracing the breakage and coming back stronger. Just like my grandma helped me discover my love for books under the same tree, Bowman’s narrative helps audiences embrace the natural messiness of healing. One moment the trauma has healed, but we’re sobbing in a dark corner a few stanzas later—but that darkness is part of the process. The fragile human heart grows through cycles of breaking and healing, but the pain lessens when we accept that a natural problem requires a natural solution. To cope with these cycles, we need nature and its deeply rooted connections that make us stop and think,
“This subtle beauty,
this needed grace,
this proof of life
after pain.”
L.E. Bowman is no stranger to stories of change and reflection, as shown in the sense of self and identity displayed in her first poetry collection, The Evolution of a Girl. But what is to be said of connections beyond the intimate bond with the self? How do humans relate to their surroundings, to the natural world that we seem to stray farther from every year? This is where her second collection, What I Learned from the Trees, differs. Instead of looking inward to understand a place of belonging, What I Learned from the Trees explores the similarly complicated relationship between humans and nature that will feel warm and familiar to anyone who has found themselves spending too much time in the comfort of the indoors as an adult.
Much of Bowman’s second collection reminded me of the towering pecan tree in my grandparents’ backyard. As my cousins and I raced outside to climb it, my grandma yelled after us, “Don’t hurt yourselves!” I never paid this any mind. I thought I was invincible, a belief destroyed by a trip over a gnarled root and a shattered wrist. As I healed, I only got close enough to look up into the branches and imagine the irreparable damage that could come from tumbling from the top. Even when the cast was gone, I couldn’t face the pain. I watched from the ground, growing leery of nature just as quickly as I fell in love with it.
To a kid, nature is simultaneously awe-inspiring and terrifying. As we grow up, the negative aspects of life creep into happy memories, overriding joyous moments with darkened edges of anxiety. Soon enough, we are so afraid of breaking that we forget how often nature heals itself. We also forget that we are part of nature, part of a process of breaking and building back. In Bowman’s reasoning, this adult understanding of the world leads us on a desperate search to resolve a sense of broken loneliness. It’s not human nature that leaches our desire to run to embrace the breaking, rather:
“It’s the detachment that does it,
that turns us into a lone tree in a forest
struggling for light.”
With this realization, Bowman’s speaker embarks on an existential journey, venturing back into the woods, literally and figuratively, where they eventually realize that our fear of nature is what locks it away in the dusty, forgotten corners of our minds.
While many poets use nature to symbolize life and creation, Bowman’s nature holds a magnifying glass to death and destruction. Several pieces in this collection contemplate roadkill, circling the realization that the most horrifying aspect of seeing a carcass on the side of the road is not the life lost but “how we drive over bodies and don’t even/care enough to count.” With this shift in perspective, the magnifying glass turns from death to how we think about life. Why do we drive past roadkill? Where is the reverence? Are animal lives any less worthy than human lives? What does it say about us we even have to ask that question?
Certain parts of the collection feel detached, almost like venturing into the city. In Part I, the speaker struggles to heal from a lost love, which extends to other losses in Part II-IV, but some pieces strain the natural theme. In “My current obsession is ‘fitness,’” the speaker reflects on social media’s impact on body image, calling on voices that claim,
“Fat girl, you are not big boned
You are not hypothyroid
You are not genetically burdened.”
It feels strange to read a piece about the carefully synthesized world of social media in a collection centered on the grit of nature. The collective outside voice will resonate with anyone who tries to block it out with excuses for their shortcomings, but the digital setting feels strange when set against the organic elements and characters in the rest of the collection.
Bowman’s style is consistent, with very few poems that venture into experimental territory—but the poems that mix it up shine the brightest. In “Things that make me feel alive,” the speaker embraces all of the things that remind them of their beating heart in the style of Sei Shōnagan. “Yearning” offers an epigraph-like opening that defines the word for the rest of the poem, whose verses are set off by slash marks to create a punctuated feeling with lines like,
“the heat / the need / the craving/ the way clouds become heavy before
they burst / the way light gives way to night so calmly / the way
darkness means rebirth.”
Both pieces are set apart from the rest of the collection without distracting from the collection's overall fluidity, showing that Bowman is more than capable of toying with different forms without losing the theme. The varying voices underlying these experimental and tribute poems show the natural interconnectedness of humanity. It’s a shame What I Learned From the Trees doesn’t venture into further risks to play with other patterns and forms.
Through a cycle of breaking and healing, the speaker embraces nature. After a series of difficult questions, their relationship with nature begins to heal as they realize that they may not be as far above it as they had once believed, a realization that comes in the breathtaking lines:
“You cannot truly see something
If you believe you are above it.
Emotions. People. Creatures.
The earth.”
Despite what we want to think, humans are not above nature. Humans are part of nature, a place where some things don’t happen for a reason, but that doesn’t mean our pain is pointless. These are the lessons we can learn from nature and start to heal some of our deepest wounds. As we leave the forest, we greet the trees, and they ask:
“Did you remember who you are?
Human? Yes.
But also, animal.”
Even if the human side wants us to think we are wholly self-sufficient, the animal side relies on a pack. Other people can’t fix us, but they can help soothe the sting while we let nature take its play its part in the healing process.
Just like Bowman’s trees, my experience with the pecan tree taught me that half of the joy of living is embracing the breakage and coming back stronger. Just like my grandma helped me discover my love for books under the same tree, Bowman’s narrative helps audiences embrace the natural messiness of healing. One moment the trauma has healed, but we’re sobbing in a dark corner a few stanzas later—but that darkness is part of the process. The fragile human heart grows through cycles of breaking and healing, but the pain lessens when we accept that a natural problem requires a natural solution. To cope with these cycles, we need nature and its deeply rooted connections that make us stop and think,
“This subtle beauty,
this needed grace,
this proof of life
after pain.”
Meagan Pusser is an MFA candidate at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. She's an avid multigenre writer whose work focuses on themes of mental illness, emotional healing, and the intersection between interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships. Her recent and forthcoming work can be found in Our State, Apogee, Innovation, and Port City Review.
