 Joyce Kilmer 's reputation as a poet is staked largely on the widespread popularity of this one poem . " Trees " was liked immediately on first publication in Poetry : A Magazine of Verse ; when Trees and Other Poems was published the following year , the review in Poetry focused on the " nursery rhyme " <unk> and simplicity of the poems , finding a particular <unk> <unk> in " Trees " , which gave it " an unusual , haunting <unk> " . However , the same review criticized the rest of the book , stating " much of the verse in this volume is very slight indeed . " 
