Joyce Kilmer: Difference between revisions

Alfred Joyce Kilmer
Sgt. Joyce Kilmer, as a member of the 69th Volunteer Infantry Unit, circa 1918.
Born	6 December 1886. New Brunswick, New Jersey (USA)
Died	30 July 1918 near Seringes, France
Occupation	poet, journalist, editor, lecturer, soldier
Nationality	American
Period	1909-1918
Genre	poetry, literary criticism, catholicism
Signature

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (6 December 1886 – 30 July 1918), known familiarly as Joyce Kilmer, was an American journalist, poet, lecturer and editor. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his religious faith, Kilmer is remembered most for a poem entitled "Trees" (1913) which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. At the time of his deployment to Europe during the first World War (1914-1918), Kilmer was considered the leading American Roman Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation whom critics often compared to British contemporaries G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953). A sergeant in the famous 69th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Kilmer was killed at the Second Battle of Marne in 1918 at the age of 31.

Biography

Early years: 1886-1908

Kilmer was born on 6 December 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the fourth and youngest child 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. Dr. Alfred Stowe and the Rev. Dr. Elisha Brooks Joyce, two consecutive 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. Kilmer would later convert from the Anglican church to Roman Catholicism in 1913.

Kilmer's birthplace in New Brunswick, where the Kilmer family lived from 1886 to 1892, is still standing, and houses a small museum to Kilmer, as well as a few Middlesex County government offices.

Kilmer entered the Rutgers College Grammar School (now Rutgers Preparatory School) in 1895 at the age of 8. During his years at the Grammar School, he...

"...won the Lane prize in public speaking and was editor-in-chief of the Argo, the school paper. He loved the classics, although he had considerable difficulty with Greek. In his last year at Rutgers, he won the first Lane Classical Prize, a free scholarship for the academic course at Rutgers College, and one hundred dollars in money. Despite his difficulties with mathematics and Greek, he stood at the head of his class in preparatory school."

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. At Rutgers, Kilmer was associate editor of the Targum, the campus newspaper and a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. Unable to complete the rigorous mathematics requirement in the curriculum at Rutgers and facing a repeat of his sophomore year, Kilmer transferred to Columbia University in New York City.

At Columbia, Kilmer was vice-president of the Philolexian Society, associate editor of Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper and was a member of the Debating Union. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree and graduated from Columbia on 23 May 1908. Shortly after graduation, on 9 June 1908, he married Aline Murray (1888–1941) a fellow poet, to whom he had been engaged since his sophomore year at Rutgers. Five children were born to the marriage: Kenton Sinclair Kilmer (1909–1995), Michael Barry Kilmer (1916–1927), Deborah ("Sister Michael") Clanton Kilmer (1914–1999), Rose Kilburn Kilmer (1912–1917), and Christopher Kilmer (1917–1984).

Writing years: 1909-1917

From 1909 to 1912, he worked on the staff of "The Standard Dictionary" published by Funk and Wagnalls and became a special writer for the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He then moved to Mahwah, New Jersey, where he resided until his service and death in World War I.

War years: 1917-1918

Kilmer enlisted in the United States Army in April 1917, and quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant in the 69th Volunteer Infantry Regiment (better known as the "Fighting 69th" and later redesignated the 165th Infantry Regiment), of the 42nd "Rainbow" Division. Originally a statistician, Kilmer was assigned duty as an Intelligence observer, requiring patrols deep behind enemy lines to gather information about the enemy. At the Second Battle of Marne, during one mission at Muercy Farm, beside the Oureq River near the village of Seringes, in France, Kilmer was killed in action by a sniper on 30 July 1918 at the age of 31. For his valour, Kilmer was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) by the French Republic.

Kilmer was buried in the Oise-Aisne Cemetery, near Fere-en-Tardenois, Aisne, Picardy, 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.

Works

• Summer of Love (1911)
• Trees and Other Poems (New York: Doubleday Doran and Co., 1914).
• The Circus and Other Essays. (New York: Lawrence J. Gomme, 1916).
• Main Street and Other Poems (New York: George H. Doran, 1917).
• The Courage of Enlightenment. An address delivered in Campion College, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, to the members of the graduating class, 15 June 1917. (Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin: 1917).
• Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets. (ed. by Joyce Kilmer). (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1917).
• Literature in the Making by some of its Makers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917).
• Poems, Essays and Letters in Two Volumes (Volume One: Memoir and Poems, Volume Two: Prose Works) (New York: George H. Doran, 1918 - published posthumously).
• The Circus and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces (New York: George H. Doran, 1921 - published posthumously).

"Trees"

Though a prolific poet, Joyce Kilmer is chiefly known for a poem entitled "Trees" published in a collection entitled Trees and Other Poems (1914) after debuting in Poetry magazine in August 1913. The poem was written on 2 February 1913, in the Kilmer home in Mahwah, New Jersey. Other sources, which state is was written in Chicago, are unsubstantiated.

The belowstated is the original text written by Kilmer.

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet 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.

There have been several variations on the text, including many parody texts substituted to mimic Kilmer's seemingly simple rhyme and meter. Of the often repeated parodies, the most known is "Song of the Open Road" by Ogden Nash (1902–1971) in which Nash wrote:

I think that I shall never see

A billboard lovely as a tree.

Indeed, unless the billboards fall,

I shall not see a tree at all.

Inspiration

Many locations across the United States maintain legends that certain trees in their localities inspired Kilmer to write the poem. Most noted among them is the tradition in Kilmer's birthplace, 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 (now known as the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences), at Rutgers University. This tree, several hundred years old, fell 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 Rutgers University.

According to Kilmer's son, Kenton, the poem—which was not inspired by any tree in particular but about trees in general—was written "...in an upstairs bedroom... which served as Mother's and Dad's bedroom and also as Dad's office.... The window looked out down a hill, on our well-wooded lawn - trees of many kinds, from mature trees to thin saplings: oaks, maples, black and white birches, and I don't know what else." However, a 1915 interview with Kilmer "pointed out that while Kilmer might be widely known for his affection for trees, his affection was certainly not sentimental - the most distinguished feature of Kilmer's property was a colossal woodpile outside his home. The house stood in the middle of a forest and what lawn it possessed was obtained only after Kilmer had spent months of weekend toil in chopping down trees, pulling up stumps, and splitting logs. Kilmer's neighbors had difficulty in believing that a man who could do that could also be a poet."

Scansion and analysis

"Trees" is a poem comprised of twelve lines—with the exception of the eleventh line which possesses seven syllables—each line consists of eight syllables in strict iambic tetrameter. The poem's rhyme scheme is organized in a series of rhyming couplets rendered aa bb cc dd ee aa.

Despite its deceptive simiplicity in rhyme and meter, "Trees" is notable for its use of personification and anthropomorphic imagery: the tree of the poem, which Kilmer depicts as female, is depicted as pressing its mouth to the earth's breast, looking at God and raising its "leafy arms" to pray. The tree of the poem also is given human physical attributes, namely Kilmer's description of the tree possessing a "hungry mouth", arms, hair (in which Robins nest), and a bosom.

The poem was given several musical settings that were quite popular in the 1940s and 1950s, the most popular written by Oscar Rasbach in 1922, with renditions performed by Ernestine Schumann-Heink, John Charles Thomas, Nelson Eddy, Robert Merrill and Paul Robeson.

Criticism and influence

Joyce Kilmer is often criticized for poetry that does not break free of the traditional modes, rhyme and meter, or themes.

All of Kilmer's work appears before the emergence of modernist poets T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) and Ezra Pound

Notable places and things named for Kilmer

Several municipalities across the United States have named parks, schools and streets in honour of Joyce Kilmer, including his hometown of New Brunswick, New Jersey, which renamed the street on which he was born "Joyce Kilmer Avenue."

• Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest (3,800 acres/15km²) located in the Nantahala National Forest, near Robbinsville in Graham County, North Carolina was dedicated in Kilmer's memory on 10 July 1936.
• Camp Kilmer, opened in 1942 in what is now Edison, New Jersey, an embarcation center for soldiers going to the European theatre during World War II. Many of the original buildings remain, and it is now the location of the Livingston campus of Rutgers University where a library is named after him.
• The State of New Jersey and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority have named a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike, located in East Brunswick Township after him.
• The Philolexian Society of Columbia University, a collegiate literary society of which Kilmer was Vice President, holds the annual Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest in his honor.

External links and other resources

Books and printed materials

• Hillis, John. Joyce Kilmer: A Bio-Bibliography. Master of Science (Library Science) Thesis. Catholic University of America. (Washington, DC: 1962).
• Holliday, Robert Cortes. “Memoir,” in Joyce Kilmer: Poems, Essays and Letters, 3 vols.,(New York: George H. Doran Company, 1921), 1:17ff.
• Kilmer, Annie Kilburn. Whimsies, More Whimsies.
• Kilmer, Annie Kilburn. Memories of My Son, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer.
• Kilmer, Annie Kilburn. Leaves of My Life.
• Kilmer, Kenton. Memories of my Father, Joyce Kilmer (Joyce Kilmer Centennial, 1993) ISBN 978-0963752406

External links

• Tribute page at Rising Dove (a site by his grand-daughter)
• Tribute Page at the University of Notre Dame
• A Tribute to Joyce Kilmer by a Kilmer biographer
• 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)