Joyce Kilmer: Difference between revisions

Joyce Kilmer, circa 1918

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918) was an American journalist and poet; his best-known work is "Trees". The poem is notable for its anthropomorphism: the tree in the poem presses its mouth to the earth's breast and looks at God and raises its leafy arms to pray. The poem was given a musical setting that was quite popular in the 1940s and 1950s. His birthplace in New Brunswick, where he lived from 1886 to 1892 is still standing and houses offices.

Biography

Kilmer was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of Annie Ellen Kilburn (1849-1932) and Dr. Frederick Barnett Kilmer (1851-1934), a physician and chemist employed by the Johnson and Johnson Company and inventor of the company's famed Baby Powder. He was named Alfred Joyce Kilmer after the Rev. Drs. Alfred Stowe and Elisha Brooks Joyce, two rectors of Christ Church, the oldest episcopal parish in New Brunswick, where the Kilmer family were parishioners. Rector Joyce, who served the parish from 1883 to 1916, (Stowe served from 1839 to 1883) baptised the young Kilmer.

After attending and graduating from the Rutgers College Grammar School (now Rutgers Preparatory School) in 1904, he continued his education at Rutgers College from 1904 to 1906. Unable to complete the rigorous mathematics requirement in the curriculum at Rutgers, Kilmer transfered to Columbia University in New York City, completing his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1908. Shortly after graduation, he married Aline Murray (1888-1941) a fellow poet, and had five children: Kenton Sinclair Kilmer (1909-1995), Michael Barry Kilmer (1916-1927), Deborah Clanton Kilmer (1914-1999), Rose Kilburn Kilmer (1912-1917), and Christopher Kilmer (1917-1984).

Kilmer served as a soldier in the United States Army's 165th Infantry, Rainbow Division and was killed in action by a sniper during World War I, aged 31. Little is known of the circumstances surrounding his death. Kilmer was buried in the Oise-Aisne Cemetery, Fere-en-Tardenois, France. Although Kilmer is buried in France in an American military cemetery, a cenotaph is located on the Kilmer family plot in Elmwood Cemetery, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Places named for Kilmer

The Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest which is approximately 3,800 acres (15 km²) of old growth forest is located in the Nantahala National Forest under the management of the USDA Forest Service in Graham County, North Carolina. This forest was purchased by the US government in order to stop extensive over-logging in the area and dedicated to Kilmer's memory on July 10, 1936. It has some of the largest trees east of the Mississippi, and includes the Slickrock Wilderness Area.

In 1942 the U.S. Army opened a new embarkation center and named it Camp Kilmer in honor of Joyce Kilmer.

Kilmer currently has a street named after him in New Brunswick and Edison, New Jersey, as well as many schools in New Jersey, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin, most of which were built during the period his poem was famous. A park in the Bronx, New York at 162nd Street and Grand Concourse, also is named for him. There is a memorial triangle (small park) on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, NY named after him. The New Jersey Turnpike has a rest area named after him. Boston has also named a street and school in his honor. A trail running through virgin timber is named for him in Pennsylvania's Cook Forest State Park. The Philolexian Society of Columbia University, a collegiate literary society of which he was Vice President, annually holds the infamous Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest in his honor.

"Trees"

Kilmer cenotaph, in Elmwood Cemetery, New Brunswick

Local tradition in New Brunswick, New Jersey, states that Kilmer wrote the poem "Trees" after a large white oak (Quercus alba) tree that was located on the outskirts of town on the campus of Cook College (the School of Agriculture), at Rutgers University. This tree, several hundred years old, fell taken down after being struck by lightning in the 1990s. Currently, sapplings grown from acorns of the historic tree are being grown at the site, throughout the Middlesex County area, and in major arborteums around the United States. The remains of the original Kilmer Oak are currently kept in storage at Cook College, Rutgers University.

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

External links

• Tribute page at Rising Dove (a site by his grand-daughter)
• Tribute Page at the University of Notre Dame
• Works by Joyce Kilmer at Project Gutenberg
• Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest website
• Philolexian Society of Columbia University
• Reelyredd's Poetry Pagesaudio version of Trees(with Jimmy Stewart voice impression)