It was written in a little notebook in which his father and mother wrote out copies of several of their poems and, in most cases, added the date of composition. The desk was in an upstairs room, by a window looking down a wooded hill. It was written in the afternoon in the intervals of some other writing. The Kilmers lived on the southwest corner of the intersection of Airmount Road and Armour Road in Mahwah for five years and the house overlooked the Ramapo Valley. The Kilmer family home in Mahwah, New Jersey, where 'Trees' was written in February 1913 Mahwah: February 1913 Īccording to Kilmer's oldest son, Kenton, 'Trees' was written on February 2, 1913, when the family resided in Mahwah, New Jersey, in the northwestern corner of Bergen County. Kenton Kilmer stated that while his father was 'widely known for his affection for trees, his affection was certainly not sentimental-the most distinguished feature of Kilmer's property was a colossal woodpile outside his home'. 'Trees' was written in an upstairs bedroom at the family's home in Mahwah, New Jersey, that 'looked out down a hill, on our well-wooded lawn'. However, Kilmer's eldest son, Kenton, declares that the poem does not apply to any one tree-that it could apply equally to any. The location for a specific tree as the possible inspiration for the poem has been claimed by several places and institutions connected to Kilmer's life among these are Rutgers University, the University of Notre Dame, and towns across the country that Kilmer visited. 'Trees' is frequently included in poetry anthologies and has been set to music several times-including a popular rendition by Oscar Rasbach, performed by singers Nelson Eddy, Robert Merrill, and Paul Robeson. Literary critic Guy Davenport considers it 'the one poem known by practically everybody'. Despite this, the popular appeal of 'Trees' has contributed to its endurance. Kilmer's work is often disparaged by critics and dismissed by scholars as being too simple and overly sentimental, and that his style was far too traditional and even archaic.

Kilmer is most remembered for 'Trees', which has been the subject of frequent parodies and references in popular culture. The poem, in twelve lines of rhyming couplets of iambic tetrameter verse, describes what Kilmer perceives as the inability of art created by humankind to replicate the beauty achieved by nature. Written in February 1913, it was first published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse that August and included in Kilmer's 1914 collection Trees and Other Poems. ' Trees' is a lyric poem by American poet Joyce Kilmer. Joyce Kilmer's Columbia University yearbook photograph, c.

Little Tree by Joyce C. Mills