Poetry as Method: Engaging the “Weediness” of the Manitoba Maple through Poetic Encounter

Emma Bider

doi:10.18357/anthropologica64220221052

Authors

Emma Bider Carleton University (Ottawa CANADA)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18357/anthropologica64220221052

Keywords:

Manitoba Maple, non-human relations, tree imaginaries, ethnographic poetry, urban anthropology, urban ecology

Abstract

In the summer of 2021 as part of my PhD fieldwork, I volunteered with a “Neighbourwoods” project in Ottawa, Ontario, to inventory and assess the health of our neighbourhood’s tree canopy. The project offered me the opportunity to get a sense of residents’ relationships to trees near or on their property and think through the methodological challenge of doing ethnography with trees as well as people. With this poem, I try to extend empathy to the Manitoba Maple, a tree often considered “weedy,” “unruly,” or even “crap.” I try to use the poetic form as an act of interrelation that attempts to push against the ontological delineation between person and tree.

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