Jim Slaughter Poet Rhyme

High Praise For Joyce Kilmer

For years I've tried to figure out
The tree Joyce Kilmer wrote about.
Was it an oak, or maybe elm?
What was it so appealed to him
That gives his simple poem so much clout?

He thought that he would never see a poem lovely as a tree,
Then, quick as anyone could quote one,
He sat himself right down and wrote one
As lovely's any poem about a tree's a right to be.
What line could possibly compare
To "a nest of robins in her hair"?

So when next my muse is on vacation,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
And I am strapped for inspiration,
P'rhaps I'll attempt a Kilmer imitation.
Then as quick as one-two-three,
I'll have a poem about a tree.
But to forestall all litigation,
I'll call mine "Arboreal Vegetation".

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Gershon Wolf June 30, 2022 at 6:28 PM Love the last two lines, Jim. Thanks for the chuckles. :) gw Jim Slaughter July 1, 2022 at 9:47 AM Thank you, G.

L Milton Hankins June 30, 2022 at 1:31 PM Very clever, Jim. I'm sure you know Kilmer's poem has been a subject of derision among poetry snobs ever since it first appeared. Frankly, I have always liked it, and it is one of the few poems I can recite almost verbatim. Jim Slaughter June 30, 2022 at 2:24 PM I did not know that, L M, and I cannot imagine why. Especially when he died so young. Thank you for this bit of poetic trivia, and for not being a "poetry snob".