I think “Trees” is a lovely little piece of poetry.

Wikipedia does not hesitate to inform me that the majority does not share my opinion: “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.”

Yet, casting aside those preconceptions, I read through it (it’s twelve lines, short and sweet) and thought it was pleasant and charming. I didn’t care too much for the hungry mouth being “prest”, but I liked “upon whose bosom snow has lain” and thought the wearing of “A nest of robins in her hair” was quite evocative. The “fools like me” line gave me a smile, and though I haven’t been religious in a long time and “only God can make a tree” struck me as patently false, I liked the plain sentiment.

“Trees” has been widely parodied and mocked and ridiculed. Of the enduring popularity of “Trees” criticism, literary critic Mark Royden Winchell snarked that “it is sometimes possible to learn as much about poetry from bad poems as from good ones.” And there is a Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest, an annual happening, not unlike the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, where by tradition “Trees” is read aloud by the audience at the end.

The charges critics have levelled at “Trees” are many and varied. It is too simple and sentimental to be taken seriously. With its perfectly mechanical iambic tetrameter it does not push any boundaries, break any of the rules of poetics. It imitates the poetry of a passé century. It is too traditional. It is conservative. People probably only like it because of its religious appeal, praising God with stock images, prettified little pictures, so as Serious Poetry it is utterly without merit.

And … I don’t buy much of it? Like, I like it despite, or even kinda because of, its cheap sentimentality. And I don’t understand why it needs to push boundaries. Is that what Serious Poetry needs to do? And I doubt I’ll ever actually believe in God, but I didn’t find the G-word to detract from my enjoyment of it. I think it’s right on character for the poem.

And this makes me worry. Periodically I worry that I actually have no sense of artistic taste at all, that I’m unable to tell good poetry from bad poetry without somebody telling me which is which, that I’m just pretending to be a cultured person. And that I’ll be in some poetry circle and I may let slip that I liked “Trees” and someone will say, “Really? Trees? You’re kidding, right?” and then my reputation will be done for.

But maybe not! Maybe you’re a stronger critic if you arrive at your conclusions independently, unswayed by the rumblings of the crowd. The trouble is, I arrived at the conclusion that “Trees” was kinda pretty, and it seems like I wasn’t supposed to do that.

Or maybe it’s not such a bad thing to have poor taste? After all, the reasoning goes, I can derive just as much enjoyment from “bad” art as I can from “good” art, whereas the culturati with the impeccably refined tastes can only enjoy the “good” art. So maybe where I am is a happier place.