Students can also check English Summary to revise with them during exam preparation.
Summary of The Tree by Adrienne Rich
About the Poet
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She was a famous poet, essayist and feminist. She has published nineteen volumes of poetry, three collections of essays and other writings.
| Poet Name | Adrienne Rich |
| Born | 16 May 1929, Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
| Died | 27 March 2012, Santa Cruz, California, United States |
| Spouse | Alfred H. Conrad (m. 1953–1970) |
| Awards | National Book Award for Poetry, Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize |
The Trees Summary of the Lesson
The poem “The Trees’ presents a conflict between men and nature. The poetess suggests that the trees and plants used for interior decoration in cities are imprisoned. They need freedom. They want to move out to the forest where trees are being cut ruthlessly.
The poetess wants to show that everything has deep desire to acquire freedom. It is necessary for our growth and well being. We must confirm to the natured laws. Can there be the trees without forest? or can there be a forest without trees? Where are the trees? And where do they go?
The T voice of the speaker of Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Trees’ is a voice with a body engaged in activities and sensing intrusion that are not organic to the conventions of a native poem.
This is, in fact, an (un) natural poem that narrates the struggle of a population of trees to escape the confines of a greenhouse. In evoking the trees’ “Strain’, the poem demonstrates the unsuitability of language itself as a greenhouse or container of nature. The speaker (poetess) is a witness of the trees’ exodus, but no poems, “long letters”, in which she ‘scarcely mention (s) the departure of the forest’.
Even through the speaker addresses an audience, her own “head is full of whispers”, she is an audience, a transaction that occurs on a page, and say, listen you. She knows that once the trees move to the forest, there will be complete silence in her house.