Planting a Sequoia

Virginia Hasenmeyer
English Yr. 2 Mr. Holmes
Planting a Sequoia

The poem Planting a Sequoia by Dana Gioia was written in 2004, and is a lyric poem. A lyric poem is a poem that expresses personal feeling, mood or mediation towards something. Furthermore, the poem has an elegiac perspective, because the content of this poem is about a father’s first baby son dyeing and a tree being planted to represent this. Dana Gioia uses a lot of imagery, both sensory and figurative, to describe her feelings towards the situation. The big idea of this poem is the juxtaposition between death and birth and it is expressed by a baby boy dyeing and a sequoia tree being planted.

The use of imagery in this poem is very powerful since it sets the mood throughout the poem. Already in the first stanza imagery is used to set the setting. Due to sensory imagery like, “Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific” one can locate that the poem is set in the north-west Coast of America. Also the atmosphere of the poem is defined by the use of diction and the descriptions about the setting. Words like rain, blackened, dull and grey suggest a sad mood, for example due to death. An example of more figurative imagery is in stanza three: “stray atoms” which is a metaphor for bits and pieces of the dead baby boy. Throughout the poem, more imagery is used, especially in the middle stanza, where the burial of the little baby is described. A metaphor used is “our native giant” which refers to the Sequoia tree, which is native to North America. The new tree being planted is in juxtaposition to the baby being buried under the tree. “Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant’s birth cord.” This verse is the heart of the poem, because it is in contrast to the new tree being planted. Gioia uses symbols such as a lock of hair and the birth cord to represent the baby boy that died.

The juxtaposition in this poem is also represented by the tone of the poem. In the second stanza the tone of the poem is hopeful, because it uses the conditional verb “would” to express what would have happened if they lived in Sicily. The father explains that he would have planted an olive tree or a fig tree to celebrate new life; however this wouldn’t have worked in America due to the temperature. Therefore, a Sequoia tree was planted, which is represents a long life even though a baby just died.

This elegiac poem is driven by the use of imagery and reflects on the big idea, which is the juxtaposition between birth and death. The symbols used to represent this are the Sequoia tree which represents long lasting life and the father’s son who died. The father explains that he will continue having children, even though the first one died: “unborn brothers dead”. After the whole family has died, the sequoia tree will still be standing in the middle of the apple trees, representing life, and not knowing that underneath it, is death. “I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to you, Silently keeping the secret of your birth.”This last verses of the poem, request to the tree, that he has to always be there remember all the things that happened.

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