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Unfortunately this tattoo is really hard to photograph because it goes around my ankle but this is what I did today!!! Four hours with one break, all done in one sitting at Pino Bros Ink in Cambridge, MA, by Ben Pease

#ben pease #pino bros ink #cambridge ma #tattoo #rabbit #look it's me #i need to name him

Philosopher's Way at John McLaren Park, San Francisco

Philosopher’s Way at John McLaren Park, San Francisco

Philosopher’s Way entry trail, John McLaren Park, San Francisco. The plaque contains the trail map and text seen below

Earlier this summer, I walked the Philosopher’s Way in San Francisco. Between wrapping up the main portion of my Frederick Douglass history of ideas travel series(I have more essays in the works about his life and ideas which I’ll finish and publish over time), preparing to…

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#Bay Area #Ben Pease #California Hills #Contemplative Space #Cow Palace #George Gonzalez #Green and Gold #John McLaren Park #Jr #Martin Luther King #Open Spaces #Peter Richards #San Bruno Mountain #San Francisco #San Francisco History #Susan Schwartzenburg #Trail Map

#ben pease #poets partying #dorothea lasky #eric amling #Christine Neacole Kanownik #simone kearney #Emily Skilings #Bianca Stone

Tree Interview with Ben Pease photo: Northampton, MA

Do you ever think about trees?

I think trees are always in the back of my mind. That is, I don't have pictures of trees plastered above the bed or anything, but I was just in Vermont for a week, and god bless 'em! At this time of year, you can just throw me under a tree, and I'll happily watch the leaves rustle around in the wind. I helped Guy Pettit plant some trees outside Flying Object, and besides how satisfying that whole process is, you can't argue with the positive action of planting a tree. On the other hand, at Bianca's grandmother's house in Goshen we are renovating ), this guy just came by and re-appraised the house. He pointed out a few trees that were touching the house and needed to be cut back if not taken out entirely. In those cases, I can't cut those trees down fast enough—to protect something that is so important to someone I love.

What is a vivid/significant memory you have involving a tree or trees?

The backyard of my parents' house rolled down into what became the woods. It was for the most part unimpeded forest up until whoever owned it sold the land, and a developer turned it into a horseshoe street of new houses with only about 200 yards of trees separating the new houses from my street. That in and of itself was a personal Princess Mononoke lesson: some people will bulldoze anything in their path to get what they want, you understand why they do it, but you still can't completely forgive them for all that destruction.

When I was somewhere around the end of elementary school/the beginning of middle school, I was given a pair of leather moccasin slippers. I loved wearing them around the house, and sometimes I would wear them to take the dog out. I was saving up my money to buy a bow my uncle had for sale at his gun shop. It was a decent Browning compound that he was selling to me for a good price, like $150 or so, but it took me a long time to save up that much money. I probably spent more time looking at bows in catalogs than anything, and at some point I decided I was going to make my own traditional bow and arrow. I didn't read up on how to make one or anything; I figured I could just sort of wing it, and it would all work out. My first step was to take one of the laces from my moccasin slippers, which were about two feet in length, and tie it to a tree in the woods behind my parents' house. My tween brain was convinced this would loosen and stretch out the leather shoelace and turn it into a perfect bowstring. I tied it to the branch of a tree no less than five feet from the property line and waited exactly one month before retrieving it. I never found it.

Are trees involved at all in your writing or worldview?

In the opening section of Chateau Wichman, trees play a pretty big part. It's been a couple years since I wrote that, and while I remember I had a very specific idea of what I meant by the leaves being "twice stilled [. . .] since the last gust of wind," it takes me a minute to figure it out again. In my new long poem, the psychic has a dream where he walks through a forest of sorts.

Ben Pease is the editor of Monk Books and a member of The Ruth Stone Foundation. He has degrees from Emerson College and Columbia University. A selection from CHATEAU WICHMAN appeared in chapbook form under the title WICHMAN COMETH. His work can be found online here.

#ben pease #Monk Books #Chateau Wichman #The Ruth Stone Foundation