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Analysis Of Jane Hirshfield 's Poem ' Tree '

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Jane Hirshfield connects 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, divided into 4 stanzas and 4 sentences to convey the nature world. The poem represents a “young redwood” (line 2) 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 the poem speaks to the reader. The poem starts by accusing the reader of letting the redwood grow near the house. “It is foolish” (line 1) lets the reader know that nature should not be growing this close to your home. Hirshfield takes the liberty to talk straight to the reader through the speaker in telling them that it is nonsense to let nature be so close to a material object such as a house. The reader can visually see a “young redwood// grow next to a house” (line 2, 3). The tree starts to symbolize the beauty of nature growing against the materialistic world. A new sentence leads into the second stanza to introduce a new idea; it shifts the attention of the poem from the imagery of the redwood growing against the house to the shortness of the

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