SHARON’S BLOG
All this month we’re celebrating National Poetry Month with famous poems worth knowing. Be sure to check out the many links at the end of this post for more poetry appreciation and practice!

What is today’s poem? Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees.” Here are the first two lines:

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree

Today’s Poem for National Poetry Month

Please take a moment to read the complete and very short poem on this poetry Website.

This poem is a lovely tribute to trees and an even stronger statement about the One who made them. Is there anything we can create that can compete with the elegance and beauty of God’s handiwork?

Joyce, famous journalist and poet in the early 1900s, died in Europe in 1918 during World War I by a sniper’s bullet.

Want to know something strange about Joyce? Joyce was not a woman. Joyce was a man. His original first name was Alfred, but he went by Joyce.

This is not as unusual as it may seem. The name Joyce used to be a man’s name, as did Ashley, Vivian, Meredith, and many others. For some reason, they eventually became known as names for women. Today, many names can be used for either males or females, like Robin or Jackie or Chris.

Now it’s your turn: Choose one of the following ideas to write about.

Read Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” and then write your own poem about something in nature you enjoy. Give it human qualities, as Kilmer does when he writes about a “nest of robins in her hair.”
Make a list of names that can be used for either boys or girls.