The lady who wrote this letter to the editor gets a free beer or cup of coffee on me if I ever meet her. Why, you ask?

Beyond the expenses for “the metal pipes and the reflectorized green placards” which carry Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” that line the Pan Philippine highway according to reader Manuel R. Mendoza III, non-literature majors must know that the poem “Trees” is a bad poem. (…)

But why does “Trees” appeal to a certain sector of society? The same question is asked by the New Critics, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren who pointed out the technical weakness of the poem. “Trees” does not work because of its “confused and inconsistent imagery,” they said.

If our government officials want us to celebrate Arbor Day every day, let us patronize our own like Anthony Tan’s “Talking to a Tree by the Boulevard” and Edith Tiempo’s “Plants and People.” Stop bad poetry on the highway!

I haven’t read either of the two poems she suggests so I can’t speak for them, but I have an intense dislike of “Trees.”
Actually, that’s an understatement: I hate it so much that it’s become one of the signs that warns me off of people I’m probably not going to get along with long-term (i.e. I think to myself, “He finds “Trees” deeply moving, makes plans around watching “Ally McBeal” and says Gwyneth Paltrow is hot. We cannot be friends.”) I dread visiting Baguio partly because of the long drive and partly because the damn thing’s posted on a series of metal placards leading into the city. Halfway through grade school our nice (but flaky) principal Mrs Castillo created a “peace garden” where we had our Monday morning assemblies and yearly class photos and I avoided it as much as I could because “Trees” was of course posted all over the place (although in fairness I must say the tacky wishing well, which was a metal barrel painted to look like it was made out of bricks, didn’t help things along).
Okay, so I can be a bit of a snob, but I’m hardly alone: when Kilmer attended Columbia, he was VP of The Philolexian Society, which now holds The Annual Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest “to read our own grotesque verse to each other in Mr. Kilmer’s honor.” Adam Fields has put some of his entries up for our enjoyment and this is one of my favorites:

Turgid Wrecking Balls Glow Fiercely Unto The Night
(Ode to a Peanut Butter Twix)

I miss the cookie crunch,
The Peanut Buttery Crispety Crunchety,
oh wait That’s Butter-Finger
Crispety-Crunchety Crunchety-Crispety

Cookie Crunch. Chocolate. Peanut Butter. Cookie.
Was that so bad?

Why, oh why, oh why did they have to take it away?
Was it wrong? Was it rude? Did it flay?
Did it corrupt children on the Internet? NO!
Did it solicit campaign funds illegitimately? NO!

Chocolate. Peanut Butter. Cookie.
Was that so bad?

Fain fair imposter Crunchy Peanut Butter Cup.
I don’t even want to eat you up.
You taste like a block of salt, you Judas treat.
If you can’t stand the kitchen, get out of the heat.

The Aero bar survived. Caramello made it past ten.
Why, even Payday hits the jackpot now and then.
Hershey squirts and Nestle tries.
As Cadbury seeks the prize.

Chocolate. Peanut Butter. Cookie.
Was that so bad?

I Think That I Shall Never See
A Twix Bar that Can Ever Be
As Good As My Peanut Butter Glee.
None For You, But Two For Me.

Genius. I may hate “Trees” but I’ve always loved Twix.