The Friday Poem: The weirdness of trees by Catherine Vidler
Image: Getty Images.
New verse from Sydney-based poet Catherine Vidler.
The weirdness of trees
I love the weirdness of trees, but that’s not an opinion.
In my opinion, shapes take the shape of
things other than my opinion but inseparably
from my opinion about the shapes themselves.
Does that make sense? What is your opinion
on the way I have expressed myself?
Do you have an opinion?
Yes, I just stated it: This, my poem, is my opinion.
And here is another: In my opinion,
this poem is graffiti and is not graffiti.
Does that qualify as an opinion?
What is your opinion on graffiti?
Thank you for showing me.
I like your opinion. Do you like mine?
My poems enjoy my opinions immensely.
Take this poem, for example. See how
it claps. Soon it will applaud.
Might a standing ovation be waiting
in its wings? Oh my, not for the opinion itself,
which is so small even this poem can’t see it.
But for having an opinion, any opinion at all.
‘Weird trees’ is a tautology, in my opinion.
Catherine Vidler
Catherine Vidler’s first chapbook, Cloud Theory, was published by Puncher & Wattmann in 2007. In 2011 Puncher & Wattmann also published her collection Furious Triangle. Some recent publications include stamp sonnets: 28 poems created from material contained in hartmut abendschein’s ‘stamp stories’ project (SOd press, 2019), 78 composite lost sonnets (Hesterglock Prote(s)xt, 2018), Lost Sonnets (Timglaset, 2018), collected composite lost sonnets (SOd press, 2018), and lost sonnets (Spacecraft Press, 2018). In 2019 her publications included Keyboards, 14 Poems for Tom Jenks (The Blasted Tree), Repetitive Poems (Simulacrum Press), and Lost Sonnets, 3rd iteration (edition taberna kritika).
