TREES:
STUDY QUESTIONS

• Poet Walt Whitman wrote, then rewrote over and over, a famous book of poetry called Leaves of Grass. Write an essay which explains whether Whitman was less ambitious than Kilmer, or just had better eyesight.

• Which do you find more surprising: that a male poet would be named “Joyce,” or that more male poets aren’t?

• When trees grow in a specific direction, known commonly as “upward,” are they raising their arms to God, or are they moving toward the light of that big bright thing that is usually above them during the day, a process called “phototropism”? support your answer with either scientific evidence or with whatever you think.

•  This poem has a plural title, “Trees,” but throughout its twelve lines Kilmer constantly talks in the singular about “a tree.” Explain why poets are generally bad at math.

• With the hungry mouths of all the trees, shrubs, vines, crawlers, etc. prest against her breast, do you think the Earth is annoyed? Or perversely pleased?