On I-5
I wonder if anyone else who lives in this neck of the woods (ahem) thinks of Joyce Kilmer at this time of year. The trees on this western edge of the state are now out in all their glory and, although his poem has gotten a very bad rap over the years, I still give him a silent nod as I look around on these green and gray and golden summer days.
I think “Trees” was the first poem (other than nursery rhymes) that I ever ‘learned by heart.’ It was Miss Hamilton in fifth grade who had us all learn it, and I remember it being a revelation in many ways. For starters, I was surprised that Joyce could be a man’s name. My neighbor Joyce was a freckle-faced girl and even though I, myself, was named after my great-uncle Sidney (an ‘i’ for boys, a ‘y’ for girls, I was told), I had never extended that concept to any other boy’/girl names.
In Seattle
Furthermore, although I knew what a poem was, it had never occurred to me that an object such as a tree could be called one. Same with comparing earth with a mother’s breast (and never mind those boys in the back of the room giggling and snorting into their notebooks.) I was also quite amazed to learn that my parents and even my grandparents also knew that poem – my first realization that there might be a universal interest in and knowledge of poetry or of any other literature for that matter.
Along I-5
Later – much, much later and even to this day – I read severe criticism of Kilmer and his poem. Of course, I read recently, “Trees” is a notoriously awful poem. It is singsongy and saccharine. Its imagery is preposterous… Probably true, but you know what? I don’t care. I still recited it softly to myself — maybe more than once — yesterday as Nyel and I drove from Oysterville to Seattle to do some errands, and then from Seattle to Portland where he will be admitted to the hospital this morning. The trees were gorgeous. They softened our view and they lightened my thoughts.
In Prtland
I also remembered the woman from Texas who stopped in to see my mother after a trip to Alaska. “All those trees,” she said. “I am absolutely sick of trees. I don’t care if I never see another tree!” OMG! I can’t imagine what a barren world it would be without them! What if all the roads and streets we drove through today looked like Bay Avenue in Ocean Park? I truly hope that some fifth-grade teachers out there are still encouraging kids to memorize “Trees.” Maybe, just maybe, it will make a difference somewhere, someday. We can but hope.
From a professor at Notre Dame my father received a slender volume of poetry called 100 Famous Poems. He treated it (all books really) with reverence and let me read it as a child. Trees was one of the poems he recommended and read with me. When we had to learn it in school I was proud to already know it.