Poems -- Tom Disch

(Poem #443) Poems I think that I shall never read A tree of any shape or breed - For all its xylem and its phloem - As fascinating as a poem. Trees must make themselves and so They tend to seem a little slow To those accustomed to the pace Of poems that speed through time and space As fast as thought. We shouldn't blame The trees, of course: we'd be the same If we had roots instead of brains. While trees just grow, a poem explains, By precept and example, how Leaves develop on the bough And new ideas in the mind. A sensibility refined By reading many poems will be More able to admire a tree Than lumberjacks and nesting birds Who lack a poet's way with words And tend to look at any tree In terms of its utility. And so before we give our praise To pines and oaks and laurels and bays, We ought to celebrate the poems That made our human hearts their homes. -- Tom Disch

I must say I like Disch's parody [1] a good deal more than I do
Joyce Kilmer's original [2]. The latter is weak, sentimental, and on
the whole, just not very good; today's poem, though, is witty,
sensible, and much more in accord with my own views of what
poetry is and does.

Having said that, though, I'd be the first to admit that Kilmer's poem
(or at least the first and last couplets thereof) will probably be
immortal; 'Poems', on the other hand, will almost certainly not.
Such is life.

thomas.

[1] How could I resist a piece that rhymes 'poem' and 'phloem'?

[2] 'Trees', at poem #146

[Afterthought]

There's a pretty famous sf author called Thomas M. Disch ('Camp
Concentration', '334', 'Angouleme'). I wonder if he's any relation?

[One fatbrain search later]

Yup, I think it's the same chappie. One of fatbrain's listings is for a
collection titled 'Dark Verses and Light', by Tom Disch / Thomas
M. Disch.

Who'd have thunk it?

(Though actually, 'poems that speed through time and space / As
fast as thought' is a bit of a giveaway).

[After the afterthought]

I wonder what Disch would have to say to people (geeks, aptly
enough) who refer to published material as 'dead-tree' versions...