THINGS I LEARN
FROM TREES
THINGS I LEARN FROM TREES BY ROWAN REDDINGTON
The inaugural winner of The Brunel Prize is Rowan Reddington, who graduated with a BA in Creative Writing at Brunel in 2025 with First Class Honours. Chosen by chair of judges Paul Murray, Rowan’s story, Things I Learn from Trees, chronicles a day in the life of a tree surgeon, as he travels from job to job with the other men who make up the crew. Tragedy and frivolity converge, and amidst the jesting and jibes, it is clear that not everything can be shared openly among colleagues. Paul Murray, Chair of Judges, described the story as ‘poetic, compassionate, full of humour and wisdom.’
You can read an extract from the story below.
ROWAN REDDINGTON
Rowan is a poet and tree surgeon living in East London. His work has recently been featured in 14 Magazine and Acumen. His poem ‘Wild Ghazal’ won second prize in the Shelley Memorial Project’s 2025 competition. He is currently working on a new pamphlet of compromised, radical ecopoems.
Things I Learn From Trees
When the rain comes I am lying in bed staring at the slit between the curtains. Wilting leaves, orange light, the whoosh of a dreamt ocean. Izzy is, or appears to be, not yet conscious for once. I guess that’s the benefit of a long relationship: someone against whom you can always come up short. A symbiosis of failure. I, like Lou Reed on ‘Venus in Furs’, could sleep for at least a thousand years.
Yet here we are, me and Lou, in the truck heading south on Liverpool St. The Gherkin etc are gleaming. The sky is brightening and mottled. As if the rain were just a passing cloud. Mo Tucker is thumping the tubs and John is freaking out on the viola as we cross the river; Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf are off east in the dawn. There are moments of beauty in this oligarchs’ city.
When I get to the yard I go into the office and ask Dave what the job is.
Dave has an actual face scar, doesn’t do eating, and whiffs of halitosis.
‘You fuckers are off to the cemetary,’ he pipes with a grin. ‘Monterey cypress deadwoods.’
We load the big truck: groundsaws, top-handles, handsaws and secateurs; rope bags, climbing bags, throw lines and rigging ropes; rakes, shovels, brooms and tonbags; signs and cones and barrier tape; the bleed kit, the spill kit, the sharpening kit; the petrol and the chain oil. Mustn’t forget the lids. The hi-vis. The ipads. The paperwork. I cannot find a pen.
We hitch the chipper on.
The trailer lights do not work. The trailer lights never work. They used to never work because the wire covers were biodegradable, and the squirrels ate them. Now they never work because the good old indestructible plastic-wrapped wires are lubricated with some kind of fish oil, and the foxes eat them. Today, however, all mammalian sabotage is sapien: Dave is on his back, impersonating a mechanic, fiddling with something. Caesar is watching the lights blink.
‘Nothing yet,’ he says, face like the Cheshire cat.
