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Related Pieces
Piece Description
Joyce Kilmer was born in 1886, and lived most of his short life in New Jersey. He is best known for his poem Trees, which he wrote in 1913. He was a contemporary of Ezra Pound, but he rejected the modernist movement. In fact, he went so far as to write some modernist poetry as a joke and publish it under the pseudonym of Alfred Watts. This piece is a profile of the man and his poetry, both his own and as Alfred Watts. I have also produced more of an homage to Trees: "A Poem Lovely as a Tree" which is on PRX: www.prx.org/pieces/8583
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Review of Joyce Kilmer and TreesNearly 100 years after it was written, Joyce Kilmer's 12-line poem in rhyming couplets, "Trees," appears to be alive and well. It has survived the ruthless critical dissection which the so-called New Critics of the 1950s, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, performed when they famously wrote, in their then cutting-edge textbook, "Understanding Poetry," that "Trees" presents the ridiculous visual image of a girl standing on her head. Its kitschy sentimentality notwithstanding, not long ago I took the liberty of beginning my portrait of our current commander-in-chief in a poem called "Bush": "I think that I shall never see / a president as great as he." Among the many curious tidbits Sarah Elzas's soft feature presents is the fact that Garden Stater Kilmer, who had a diehard penchant for Edwardian verse, wrote spoofs of such trendy modern poets as Ezra Pound, using the pen name of Alfred Watts. One hilarious take-off "Watts" composed begins and ends: "Eyes like little green apples. . . / And the water rats are tired"! This drop-in would be a humdinger for National Poetry Month. |
Broadcast History
Aired on Prime Time radio 1/10/2006
Transcript
SUGGESTED HOST INTRO: Joyce Kilmer was born in 1886. He lived most of his short life in New Jersey. He's best known for his poem Trees. Independent Producer Sarah Elzas [EL-zis] has this profile:
OUTRO: This piece was produced by Sarah Elzas
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NARRATIOR: TREES IS READ AT ARBOR DAY CELEBRATIONS; IT?S TAUGHT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS; AND IT?S BEEN SET TO MUSIC SEVERAL TIMES.
- MUSIC (PAUL ROBESON): I think that I shall never see
HADAS: I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree
NARRATOR: RACHEL HADAS IS A POET AND A PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT RUTGERS IN NEW JERSEY
HADAS: my take on this poem is it?s rather slight. It is free of irony and self consciousness, except that little reference to fools like me at the end, which I find kind of charming.
KILMER: Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree...
Read the full transcript
Musical Works
Trees by Oscar Rasbach performed by Paul Robeson with the New Mayfair Orchestra (from The Essential Paul Robeson/Asv Living Era)
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Liz Bulkley
Posted on March 21, 2007 at 04:07 AM | Permalink
Review of Joyce Kilmer and Trees
Sarah does a really nice job of revealing the quaintness and historical context of Joyce Kilmer. You get a sense of the preciousness of his words and also the seriousness of his lesser-known works from the early 20th century. This piece has a nice variety of sound bites in a relatively short period. We paired it with a program related to sentence diagramming, it made a nice companion piece.