THE VIEW FROM THE TREEHOUSE
This was a model that I created based on a poem of my choice for an exhibition at the Manchester Poetry Library. After reading a large selection of poems, I found this poem below by David H.W Grubb, which really interested me with its themes of childhood and nostalgia.
THE VIEW FROM THE TREEHOUSE
The view from the treehouse is the view within. Boys certain of escape, escapade, release. To climb above ordinary events, to tower here, to celebrate bedlam and disdain.
Grounded adults, hedged in things of the linear universe, tied down and flat.
But up here, in a house with no rooms, we are shipwreck and island, Gulliver and Gestapo, a watchtower and space machine.
In autumn mist, slippery as secrets, we spy on the cemetery. In summer we litter the deck with comics and prepare to repel a gang of girls.
In a ruin of rain our skull and crossbones nearly collides with the nearest foe, or we head for Berlin, the stench of grease and metal vile, the wind shrieking with flails of barbed wire.
And once the view from the treehouse was of Maureen who had come to work for us and had somewhere got a baby. She stood beneath our tree quite unaware of its spies
and punched a man in the face before embracing him.
The view from the treehouse must still be there although the nails and planks and ropes have gone.
And the house has been demolished and there are nice little dwellings and all the trees have been cut down; but the view, the view itself must still be there.
The view from the treehouse is the view within. Boys certain of escape, escapade, release. To climb above ordinary events, to tower here, to celebrate bedlam and disdain.
Grounded adults, hedged in things of the linear universe, tied down and flat.
But up here, in a house with no rooms, we are shipwreck and island, Gulliver and Gestapo, a watchtower and space machine.
In autumn mist, slippery as secrets, we spy on the cemetery. In summer we litter the deck with comics and prepare to repel a gang of girls.
In a ruin of rain our skull and crossbones nearly collides with the nearest foe, or we head for Berlin, the stench of grease and metal vile, the wind shrieking with flails of barbed wire.
And once the view from the treehouse was of Maureen who had come to work for us and had somewhere got a baby. She stood beneath our tree quite unaware of its spies
and punched a man in the face before embracing him.
The view from the treehouse must still be there although the nails and planks and ropes have gone.
And the house has been demolished and there are nice little dwellings and all the trees have been cut down; but the view, the view itself must still be there.
The piece also rotates on a turntable to symbolise their separation from the world around them and to show every element of the treehouse. Watch below: