Jane Hirshfield A Tree Poem

Jane Hirshfield is connected to nature at her home in Marin County, California this is where she gets her inspiration for her poems. Hirshfield published “Tree” in 2000 as a free verse poem, breaking it into 4 stanzas and 4 sentences to convey the nature world. The poem represents a “young redwood” (line 2) that is growing near a house, near a kitchen window. The redwood is already scraping against the window frame of the house, reminding the reader of the “foolish” (line 1) idea of letting it grow there. Humans were created to be one with nature, but as they evolved as a species, they were obligated to choose between the materialistic world or the world of nature. Hirshfield writes this poem in second person to give life to the poem so that …show more content…
Hirshfield personifies the redwood to be “calm” (line 7) while the house is personified to be “cluttered” (line 8). The redwood could be said to spiritually represent nature as a calm, easygoing, free and careless lifestyle, whereas, the materialistic world, being represented by the house, shows a life full of clutter and confusion of the human world. This comparison takes the reader to visualize the drastic difference between the sereneness of nature and the complicated human world. The reader can imagine the clutter in the kitchen of “soup pots and books –” (line 8) and can visualize a window that clashes both worlds together, making the reader feel like it is torn between two choices and “you will have to choose.” (line 6) Although the poem seems to contrast a positive life connected to nature versus a negative life of humans, it is possible that she could be suggesting the pleasant side of human life, “…and books –” (line 8). The way she ends this stanza, with the hyphen, could lead the reader to wander in their minds on how they believe the human world is, how it could be oppressive or how it could be wonderful. Hirshfield already gave room for the reader to think about the choices they have made and to discover whether they have a balance between these two worlds. Through the speaker, Hirshfield is letting the reader examine various aspects of their choice of life and whether they are …show more content…
The imagery of nature being just outside the window, a nature so powerful that it could save the reader from the human world is just in reach, the reader just needs to decide whether it wants to be a part of it or not. The third stanza gives the reader time to think about their current lifestyle, the hyphen at the end shows endless possibilities that could make the reader think longer about dropping everything and seeking nature. Hirshfield does a great job of giving the reader mixed feelings about the balance of nature and human life. She gives the reader something to think about after each stanza, and by the end she says that whatever choice you make, it “taps at your life” (line 10). What will you