Poetry Tree Tradition Marks Arrival of Spring

You can always tell when spring has arrived. Green grass. Singing birds. Bare feet. And the Poetry Tree.

Every spring, the weeping cherry tree between the corner of Main Hall and the Sundial sprouts green leaves, pink blossoms and verse. Students and faculty use ribbon to hang copies of their original and favorite poems to the tree’s branches.

Jim Peterson, an accomplished poet, playwright, novelist, and Randolph English professor, likes the tradition. “Poems and creativity are as organic to our lives as leaves are to trees. The impulse to shape our thoughts and feelings into a written form that can be shared is one that many people have, and the poetry tree provides them with a non-academic, non-threatening way to do it. And besides, it's just fun.”

Like the origin of many campus traditions, the history of the poetry tree is a bit mysterious.

Retired professor Mary Brewer Guthrow ‘65 places it back as far as the 1960s. “My best memory is that my professor, Margaret Raynal, hung the ‘Loveliest of Trees’ by A.E. Housman out there every year and then other poems from other poem-hangers appeared.” 

Like spring blossoms, however, the beauty is short lived. When the rains came this year, the ink ran, obscuring the words. If you look closely, though, you can still make out a phrase on one stained parchment... “Vita Abundantior.”

2013 Heritage Tree is historic cedar at Randolph College

A large tree that has graced front campus more more than 100 years was honored as Lynchburg’s Heritage Tree of 2013 today.

The award was announced in an Arbor Day ceremony at Lynchburg’s Sandusky Middle School. Mark Gilbert, Randolph’s grounds supervisor, accepted the award on behalf of the College.

Marge Denham speaks about the deodar cedar tree at Randolph College,
named the 2013 Heritage Tree, as Mark Gilbert shows a photo of the tree.

The honored tree is a deodar cedar that stands in front of Main Hall. A few massive branches sweep close to the ground, but there is enough room for a bench just under the tree to provide a great spot to relax, read, and enjoy the beauty of front campus. Gilbert and a forester from the city estimate that the tree is 120 to 140 years old—possibly older than the College.

“You cannot miss it—it is an absolutely gorgeous tree,” said Marge Denham, past president of the Lynchburg Tree Stewards, who presented the award to Gilbert.

Denham said the tree was nominated for the annual award last year. It was selected as Heritage Tree for its beauty and its size. “So many of the deodar cedars in our area are large, but we had a frost a number of years ago and it broke the tops off many of them. But yours was not injured,” she said.

After the Arbor Day ceremony, sixth graders at Sandusky Middle School helped plant trees around their campus.

The Cedar on front campus is just one of many trees that help beautify Randolph College. This afternoon, Randolph students in an organic gardening class planted fig trees on a hill overlooking the College’s tennis courts. Ludovic Lemaitre ’11, Randolph's sustainability coordinator, said the fig trees should bear fruit within two years.