Poetry Analysis: The Cherry Tree

I've been talking a lot about poetry in theory lately, so I wanted to put some of that theory to practice. So, I am putting my own work on display. The following is a poem I wrote in college called The Cherry Tree. I consider it my best poem for a few reasons: It has gotten more praise than any other poem I've written, it has never been rejected by a publisher, I have put in more work on this poem than any other and I am the most proud of the result.


In the heart of Tooms Field
A sole cherry tree blooms.

It marks the Great War of Haight
Where eight hundred opened bodies
Stained the white ground brown and red.

When winter falls
The horizon shines iridescent white
Save the human pink of the cherry blossoms.

No war deserves a monument
That makes its orphans smile.


Starting first with the story, there is one. We don't see action, but the story is told through a series of scenes. The first scene is a cherry tree, covered in flowers, surrounded by nature. The second scene jumps back in time and we see the remnants of a war. The green grass becomes covered in snow, which is stained red with blood and littered with mutilated corpses. The third scene, white snow covered in cherry blossoms, shows the same colors, but in a peaceful and attractive form, also bringing the scene back to the present. The fourth scene, admittedly, is weak. There is no concrete description. The closest we have is smiling orphans, which can imply little kids running and playing and climbing the tree while single mothers stand by watching, but such implications are more suited to lyrics than poetry.

Although the final stanza is the weakest visually, it is the strongest part of the poem. It is the point, the summary. It caps the story, which itself is very grave, and uses no flowery language. I spent the better part of a day trying to figure out the last stanza alone. I wrote and rewrote and struggled, racking my brain to come up with something that could do all of that. And when people read it, they always comment on those two lines. The last stanza gets more attention than anything else.

What gets the next amount of attention are the two names in the poem. People usually figure out that Tooms and Haight are homophones of 'tombs' and 'hate', respectively, and ask if that's the case. The only criticism this poem has gotten is the suggestion that the wordplay of those names can detract from the seriousness of the story. I kept them, though, because I believe that what they offer is worth the potential cost.

Tooms and Haight set a tone. Even people who don't realize the wordplay will feel a certain gravity by saying them or hearing them in their head. The sounds are powerful, even if they are represented with different letters. They also connect with other words that make for a solid unit and smooth transition. 'Tooms' rhymes with 'blooms', though it doesn't sound childish because it is not end rhyming; it just connects them. 'Haight' similarly rhymes with 'eight' and they both have the ay sound which is found in 'stained'.

Within the whole of the poem, there are many r and s sounds, which roll esily off the tong, making the poem smooth. This keeps energy low because there is nothing to build it up or crash it down. It creates a reserved or relaxed mood. Combining that with the serious subject material makes for a somber tone, which is the point (juxtaposing beauty with tragedy).

The choice of words also aids in the telling of the story. To simply say that there is a cherry tree in a field is too vague. By saying that it was in the heart of a field creates a sense of being surrounded by grass. By saying that there is a sole cherry tree, it shows that it is alone. And since it is in a field and not a forest, we know that there is nothing else around. By saying that it marks the Great War, as opposed to commemorating it, it keeps the mental image in the same place, which allows for the change in colors and images to stay grounded. When the tree is referred to as a 'monument', it can be understood that it was planted to commemorate or honor the battle and all the people who lost their lives there and is not simply a location marker. Its significance is increased by connecting it with dead people, making the beauty tragic, and making the smiles that immediately follow it also tragic.


A good poem tells a story or shows a scene. It makes use of words, sounds, and imagery, weaving all of them into a dense piece of writing that tells the story or shows the scene. It should also make the reader think. The Cherry Tree does all of those things. That is why I think it is an example of good poetry. The difficulty of doing all that is also the reason I write so very little of it.