“Some Trees” is a poem that John Ashbery wrote and then published in 1956. The subject seems to be about trees, as the title suggests, but the meanings of those trees go much deeper than the plants alone. The trees can also actually be a metaphor for the many relationships in each person’s life as well as the many experiences that catalyze growth.
The language that Ashbery uses in “Some Trees” is extremely complex and difficult to completely understand even after a few reads. However, the themes and ideas that you can understand and partially draw from analyzing the poem may partly answer the life questions that don’t really have an answer.
