#707: A requiem for Sycamore Gap

Robert MacFarlane has finished work on “The World Tree”, the libretto for a long choral work originally inspired by the felling of the Sycamore Gap Tree.

Matthew Whittall and Robert Macfarlane’s large-scale choral work The World Tree traces an arc from the Ice Age to the present day from the perspective of a single tree, and stands as a powerful statement against humanity’s callous exploitation of nature.

The CD came out on Friday this week....

In 2025 Robert MacFarlane  wrote:

My text is currently being set to music by the Finnish-Canadian composer Matthew Whittall, and will have its premiere in Finland in November this year, performed by the @helsinginkamarikuoro and conducted by Nils Schweckendiek. We expect it to travel subsequently, including for performance on or near Hadrian’s Wall itself.

In the text, I pull the temporal lens right back to the re-beginning of trees and forests at the end of the Pleistocene & the beginning of the Holocene: the first movement is called “Glacial Maximum”. I am interested as much in the longue durée of human-forest relations in Northern Europe as in the acute intensity of the Sycamore Gap Tree’s felling, and the outpouring of love, grief & anger it prompted. The final movement, which borrows its title from the great Ursula Le Guin, is called “The Word for World Is Forest”, and imagines a future forest flourishing on the uplands where that one tree once stood.

Between these two movements come eight others with titles such as “Wildwood”, “Song of the Axe” and “Pollen: a Polyphony”. Matthew is working at white-hot intensity on the score as I type, and the early music I am hearing from him is extraordinary.

And Whittall said:

“I didn’t want to produce simply yet another contribution to the climate debate. 

My original idea was to write some kind of nature-related work, a setting of an original English text, and back in 2019 I contacted the English writer Robert Macfarlane, whose natural-philosophical works I have long admired. To my great excitement, he was keen on the idea of a collaboration, but then the pandemic came along and a whole array of other things got in the way too, and when we eventually returned to the idea in 2023, the iconic Sycamore Gap Tree on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, England, had recently been illegally felled by a pair of eco-vandals. In light of this, it felt logical to let the piece form a kind of requiem for the tree in particular and man’s often destructive relationship with nature in general. 

When Macfarlane showed me the first drafts of the text, we quickly realised that the overall piece needed a deeper approach, even if its central idea remained the same.”

#647: Mary Oliver

The poetry of Mary Oliver has come up a few times in recent weeks.

This poem was mentioned a few times.

Are you familiar with her work?

What other poems are potentially relevant for a perspective on the natural world?

#552: The John Clare Countryside Project

This was on the local news magazine programme tonight.

John Clare was a poet who was influenced by nature and the outside world.

The artist in residence Kathryn Parsons was interviewed.

The project is expanding.

An excellent booklet which provides details of the project

Download the booklet here (PDF download)

You can also download a set of Education resources.

The 2015 film By Our Selves (Andrew Kötting), featuring Toby Jones, traced Clare’s walk. Other fans of Clare’s work include Patrick Stewart and Damon Albarn.

#526: John Clare and an Inherited Perspective

Another name which I hope the new specification introduces young people to is the poet John Clare.

He is the subject of a book by the London-based writer and psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, who traced his footsteps. The cover of the book can be seen below. It is called 'Edge of the Orison'.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-clare

Click the link to download the whole eBook - thanks to Nottingham Trent University. (PDF download)

Image via Wikipedia - Public Domain

#417: Natural History Reading List #21: Cairn

The latest book by Kathleen Jamie explores the relationship between man and nature as we age. She is the same age as me pretty much, and has reflected on her life and the breakdown in the natural world that she has observed in that time.

Cairn is the new book by the poet and author Kathleen Jamie. In 2021, she was appointed as Scotland's national poet or Makar.

Cairn is a book where she reflects on turning 60 and the changes that have happened to nature in her life, and the challenges to come from the climate breakdown. It is a book made of fragments and stories - each one comprising a stone of the cairn which is built during a life, and which is hopefully 

From the publisher:

Jamie’s intent noticing of the natural world is suffused with a clear-eyed awareness of all we endanger. She considers the future her children face, while recalling her own childhood, and notes the lost innocence in the way we respond to the dramas of nature. With meticulous care, she marks the point she has reached in life and within the cascading crises of our times.

For me, the most wonderful piece of writing in the book comes towards the end in a short piece called 'Erratic'. This is well worth reading and reflecting on.

My copy was published by Sort of Books in 2024

Paperback, 144pp

ISBN: 978-1914502002

#385: Blossomise - Simon Armitage

A new addition to my library of Natural History books is the new collection from Simon Armitage. It is a lovely collection with plenty of memorable moments.

#361: Natural History Poems #1 - Hallaig by Sorley MacLean

The first of a series of posts suggesting poems that students could be asked to engage with

Hallaig is a poem by the late Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean or more correctly Somhairle MacGill-Eain.

You can find out more about his life at this website, which has been around for a long time. He has a long career and was influential on the Isle of Skye and beyond.

I had the great pleasure of meeting him briefly while walking through the village where he lived, and close to which a friend was living at the time.

The poem was set to music by the late musician Martyn Bennett (one of my favourite musicians).

#170: Representations of the natural world: cave paintings

Humans have represented the natural world in many different ways over the centuries, dating back to cave paintings through a whole range of other art forms: literature, poetry, art, pottery, gardening etc.

The original ideas in the consultation on the specification included a reference to cave paintings. This may form part of a topic called 'Life in the Early World' or more likely 'Representations of the Natural World'.

There are some famous locations where cave paintings have been discovered, which represent the flora and fauna of the time. The drawings capture creatures which are no longer native to the countries where the images are found. The paintings were also made with dyes / paints made from natural sources as well.

A few key locations which would be worth referencing:

1. Lascaux Caves

Source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/centredessciencesdemontreal/13763665525/sizes/l/

This is perhaps one of the best known locations.

The problem with the caves is that visitors change the atmosphere within the caves, due to their respiration adding heat and moisture to the otherwise cool and relatively dry interior of the caves (which was why people lived there).

There is also a good story starter for a mystery which links with Robot the Dog, who disappeared down a hole and helped to discover the cave system.

Visitors are now directed to a replica of the cave which was recreated following 3D scanning of the original spaces to ensure that they are not damaged further.

2. Chauvet Cave

The Chauvet cave, in the Ardeche region of southern France, contains some of the oldest and most remarkable cave drawings ever found - yet it has been sealed shut since its discovery to preserve this precious art.

The cave is the subject of an early film by Werner Herzog.

It is called 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams'.

In this BBC Sounds broadcast he describes the moment. He describes it as being transported to a separate reality.

What other examples of cave paintings could be added to this list of locations?

This article suggests 7 key locations.

#121: Creativity required

I trawl through the mentions of GCSE Natural History on Twitter each month to see what people are saying and whether there is any news that is relevant. Back in June there was a mention of poetry, and I have now posted the first Natural History poem on the blog.

This tweet was from David Cooper, who writes about Place. Good to hear poetry being mentioned.

‘Poetry is hope in action’ (Clare Shaw): spent yesterday in & around @bristolmuseum discussing the new GCSE in Natural History & the need for young people to learn to love - a word that was used repeatedly & without apology - through culture & creativity as well as fact. pic.twitter.com/26yRJHkqBH

— David Cooper (@DrDavidCooper) June 18, 2023

I hope that teachers show a deal of creativity when it comes to creating their own school-specific resources.

Poetry is one way to achieve this.

Please share your favourite poems with a Natural History theme by commenting below.

#120: Natural History Poetry #1: 'To Autumn'

Alongside the other sources that students will be exposed to during the GCSE in Natural History courses, poetry will play a part. This variety of cultural sources including art and literature and music is one of the interesting aspects of the course, and the selection of these sources will be interesting, and will I am sure lead to some debate about inclusion and exclusion. 

It will certainly need to be diverse and not just created by old (and possibly dead) white men.

Having said that...

As we enter the season of autumn, here's a classic which is full of natural history references... and written by a dead white man: aged just 25 when he died of tuberculosis in Rome.

To Autumn (1820)

John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 

Conspiring with him how to load and bless 

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 

With a sweet kernel; 

to set budding more, 

And still more, later flowers for the bees, 

Until they think warm days will never cease, 

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, 

Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; 

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 

Steady thy laden head across a brook; 

Or by a cider-press, with patient look, 

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too – 

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

Among the river sallows, borne aloft 

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Image: Conkers and autumn leaves, Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license