I think that I will never see a poem as lovely as a tree. Those famous words opening the poem TREES by Joyce Kilmer came immediately to mind as I open the pages of The Overstory, a Pulitzer winning novel by Richard Powrs.

Just as reading Kilmer’s verse, after reading The Overstory ,you will never look at the forest the same wasy again.

No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments of pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking a ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crash our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees-trees are invisible.

Power’s cast of human characters are environmentalists, scientists, anarchists, families, mindless entrepreneurs. However its the trees, the forest floor, the ancient sentinels and the whispers and interactions between them that create a gripping theme of survival.

The best argument in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thng that can do that is a good story.

Indeed- The Overstory succeeds!