Lorine Niedecker: Nothing Personal

I just ran across a curious, humorous poem by Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970), a native of Wisconsin and a poet often grouped with William Carlos Williams and Hilda Doolittle because of her spare rhetoric and imagery. Here is the poem:

My Friend Tree

by Lorine Niedecker


My friend tree

I sawed you down

but I must attend

an older friend

the sun.


from The Academy of American Poets site: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/729

When we see the title, "My Friend Tree," we're likely to dread reading the poem because we assume it will feature sentimental personification of the tree. Well, in this one we get the personification, but it's nothing personal; it's just business: the tree has to come down, presumably to let some light in. The phrasing is child-like in its simplicity and funny because of how the speaker breaks the news to the tree, after it's been sawed down. Niedecker's background was working-class, I gather, and she lived for a long time on an island in Wisconsin, so I can envisage her sawing down a tree.