Poetry review – TREESONGS: Charles Rammelkamp is entranced by Amy Barone’s sensitive and uplifting celebrations of nature
Treesongs
Amy Barone
Broadstone Books, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-966677-51-2
$22.50, 74 pages
As the title of Amy Barone’s new collection of poems suggests, her poems are steeped in nature. Arranged in four parts, from the top down – “Leaves,” “Branches,” “Trunk,” and “Roots” – her book of poems embraces all of life in the metaphor of trees: Treesongs, indeed. The final treesong, “Mining Calm,” indicates the overall impulse behind this lovely collection.
For the nonstop bad news of everyday,
I’d like to erect a blockade to soften
each virtual brush with a brutal death
or assault or theft.
And protected as a grove of aspen trees
joined at the root, I’ll cultivate a space
of sunny reveries and warm rain
guarded by a circle of angels
that can’t erase life’s rich presence.
The space she has cultivated is at once glorious and reverential, majestic and thoughtful. Amy Barone’s poetry covers a wide geographical range, from Wyoming and Montana to Italy and Japan, from the Catskill Mountains to Deadwood, South Dakota. The title poem, from the “Leaves” section, lifts the reader with its lyrical lilt. ‘A quaking aspen dances in the breeze, rounded leaves / shaking like castanets,’ she begins, and goes on to describe the sights and colors of Glacier National Park, Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone Park.
White spruces and cottonwoods crowded riverbanks,
their subtle soundscapes sending catkins aflutter,
trumpeting the region’s stillness and splendor.
As she writes in “Measure,” also from the first section, Barone seeks ‘places that nourish the anima.’
The “Branches” section begins with a particularly moving poem. In “City of Water,” the poet is in Kyoto, where she boards a train to a ferry that takes her ‘to “shrine” island where wild deer roam.’
A native, the tour guide forewarned us that our next stop
may unsettle some. By a bridge that echoes the Seine
stands the massive remnant of Hiroshima’s state
industrial promotion hall, 1915 – August 6, 1945.
Past the Peace Pond, we place origami swans
where millions are left each year as pledges
to be recycled as bookmarks and reminders.
“Sanso Garden,” from the “Trunk” section, also takes place in Kyoto, at ‘the famed bamboo grove, / a splendid spot on the Oi River.’
Moss patches, lily pads, and a stream dot the grounds.
A sign greets “I hope you can meet Buddha here today.”
The air is ‘cleansed and cooled by bamboo,’ a place of spiritual nourishment, indeed. “Arbors Making Poetry” is another Kyoto poem featuring giant bonsais. “Natural Monuments” and “High Evergreens,” from the “Roots” section likewise take place in Japan.
“Maui Banyan” celebrates the hundred-and-fifty-year-old trees that survived the brutal wildfires on the idyllic Hawaiian island, just as “Tall One” honors Hyperion, the world’s tallest tree, in Redwood National Park – ‘380 feet tall near friends Helios, Icarus / and Daedalus.’ “Secret Forest” pays tribute to ‘one of the world’s oldest woodlands’ in the Catskill Mountains, and “Rings” details the secrets that tree rings tell us about climate, bugs, and health. All of these poems are in the “Trunk” section. A tree trunk signifies the strength and the endurance, after all – of trees, and, by extension, of life itself.
Barone has a sly sense of humor, which is evident from her genuinely sanguine perspective. “The G Spot,” also from the “Trunk” section, is a good example. The poet finds herself in Deadwood, South Dakota. The poem begins:
Once a mecca for gals, guns, gambling, and gold,
now ponderosa pines and Victorian homes
flank the steep road to Mount Mariah cemetery
where we salute Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok.
Barone applauds wildlife as well as flora. “Hiss Golden Messenger” is a meditation on snakes (‘Agents of temptation since biblical times’), from Catherine de Medici to the Buddha, just as “Cold Play” considers the snowbird and “Trill and Quiver” the warblers, their colors and sounds.
Using red, blue, yellow throats,
the acrobatic scavengers swing from twigs
tweeting sweet arias.
“Cape May Nomads” also celebrates birds, sanderlings, ‘white-bellied birds with black bills and legs.’
But it’s the final section, “Roots,” in which Barone spells out the continuity of life promised in her verse. In the poem “Natural Monuments,” in which she writes about the Japanese holiday of Keiro no Hi that honors senior citizens, she notes that in Japan this respect extends to the trees.
At the foot of Mikado Pan shop, a venerable bakery,
sits a towering Himalayan cedar planted
by the owner’s grandfather before World War II.
Locals sprang to action when it was scheduled to be cut down
for redevelopment. Today the tree has a fund and website,
thrives surrounded by three temples
Then in the poems “Abruzzo,” “Altar,” “Back Home,” “Revisiting Place,” “Bryn Mawr,” and “HIREATH” she writes about her own roots, from her grandfather’s life in a town on the Adriatic to his immigration to the Oklahoma Indian Territory (‘reminds me that I have robust roots’), to her own early life in suburban Philadelphia. As she writes in “Bryn Mawr,” the town she grew up in:
I still wear the glow of a town
with a strange name
and settled by the Welsh.
In HIREATH she writes:
It’s not far away nor out of my life,
but still I experience hireath,
a fierce longing for home or a place or a time
that exists no more
or, perhaps never existed.
Treesongs is a lyrical celebration of the continuity of both nature and humanity. It’s an uplifting read. Amy Barone is a sensitive poet.
Aug 29 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Amy Barone
Poetry review – TREESONGS: Charles Rammelkamp is entranced by Amy Barone’s sensitive and uplifting celebrations of nature
Treesongs
Amy Barone
Broadstone Books, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-966677-51-2
$22.50, 74 pages
As the title of Amy Barone’s new collection of poems suggests, her poems are steeped in nature. Arranged in four parts, from the top down – “Leaves,” “Branches,” “Trunk,” and “Roots” – her book of poems embraces all of life in the metaphor of trees: Treesongs, indeed. The final treesong, “Mining Calm,” indicates the overall impulse behind this lovely collection.
For the nonstop bad news of everyday,
I’d like to erect a blockade to soften
each virtual brush with a brutal death
or assault or theft.
And protected as a grove of aspen trees
joined at the root, I’ll cultivate a space
of sunny reveries and warm rain
guarded by a circle of angels
that can’t erase life’s rich presence.
The space she has cultivated is at once glorious and reverential, majestic and thoughtful. Amy Barone’s poetry covers a wide geographical range, from Wyoming and Montana to Italy and Japan, from the Catskill Mountains to Deadwood, South Dakota. The title poem, from the “Leaves” section, lifts the reader with its lyrical lilt. ‘A quaking aspen dances in the breeze, rounded leaves / shaking like castanets,’ she begins, and goes on to describe the sights and colors of Glacier National Park, Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone Park.
White spruces and cottonwoods crowded riverbanks,
their subtle soundscapes sending catkins aflutter,
trumpeting the region’s stillness and splendor.
As she writes in “Measure,” also from the first section, Barone seeks ‘places that nourish the anima.’
The “Branches” section begins with a particularly moving poem. In “City of Water,” the poet is in Kyoto, where she boards a train to a ferry that takes her ‘to “shrine” island where wild deer roam.’
A native, the tour guide forewarned us that our next stop
may unsettle some. By a bridge that echoes the Seine
stands the massive remnant of Hiroshima’s state
industrial promotion hall, 1915 – August 6, 1945.
Past the Peace Pond, we place origami swans
where millions are left each year as pledges
to be recycled as bookmarks and reminders.
“Sanso Garden,” from the “Trunk” section, also takes place in Kyoto, at ‘the famed bamboo grove, / a splendid spot on the Oi River.’
Moss patches, lily pads, and a stream dot the grounds.
A sign greets “I hope you can meet Buddha here today.”
The air is ‘cleansed and cooled by bamboo,’ a place of spiritual nourishment, indeed. “Arbors Making Poetry” is another Kyoto poem featuring giant bonsais. “Natural Monuments” and “High Evergreens,” from the “Roots” section likewise take place in Japan.
“Maui Banyan” celebrates the hundred-and-fifty-year-old trees that survived the brutal wildfires on the idyllic Hawaiian island, just as “Tall One” honors Hyperion, the world’s tallest tree, in Redwood National Park – ‘380 feet tall near friends Helios, Icarus / and Daedalus.’ “Secret Forest” pays tribute to ‘one of the world’s oldest woodlands’ in the Catskill Mountains, and “Rings” details the secrets that tree rings tell us about climate, bugs, and health. All of these poems are in the “Trunk” section. A tree trunk signifies the strength and the endurance, after all – of trees, and, by extension, of life itself.
Barone has a sly sense of humor, which is evident from her genuinely sanguine perspective. “The G Spot,” also from the “Trunk” section, is a good example. The poet finds herself in Deadwood, South Dakota. The poem begins:
Once a mecca for gals, guns, gambling, and gold,
now ponderosa pines and Victorian homes
flank the steep road to Mount Mariah cemetery
where we salute Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok.
Barone applauds wildlife as well as flora. “Hiss Golden Messenger” is a meditation on snakes (‘Agents of temptation since biblical times’), from Catherine de Medici to the Buddha, just as “Cold Play” considers the snowbird and “Trill and Quiver” the warblers, their colors and sounds.
Using red, blue, yellow throats,
the acrobatic scavengers swing from twigs
tweeting sweet arias.
“Cape May Nomads” also celebrates birds, sanderlings, ‘white-bellied birds with black bills and legs.’
But it’s the final section, “Roots,” in which Barone spells out the continuity of life promised in her verse. In the poem “Natural Monuments,” in which she writes about the Japanese holiday of Keiro no Hi that honors senior citizens, she notes that in Japan this respect extends to the trees.
At the foot of Mikado Pan shop, a venerable bakery,
sits a towering Himalayan cedar planted
by the owner’s grandfather before World War II.
Locals sprang to action when it was scheduled to be cut down
for redevelopment. Today the tree has a fund and website,
thrives surrounded by three temples
Then in the poems “Abruzzo,” “Altar,” “Back Home,” “Revisiting Place,” “Bryn Mawr,” and “HIREATH” she writes about her own roots, from her grandfather’s life in a town on the Adriatic to his immigration to the Oklahoma Indian Territory (‘reminds me that I have robust roots’), to her own early life in suburban Philadelphia. As she writes in “Bryn Mawr,” the town she grew up in:
I still wear the glow of a town
with a strange name
and settled by the Welsh.
In HIREATH she writes:
It’s not far away nor out of my life,
but still I experience hireath,
a fierce longing for home or a place or a time
that exists no more
or, perhaps never existed.
Treesongs is a lyrical celebration of the continuity of both nature and humanity. It’s an uplifting read. Amy Barone is a sensitive poet.