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Alfred Joyce Kilmer (6 December 1886 – 30 July 1918), known familiarly as Joyce Kilmer, was an American journalist, poet, literary critic, 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. While most of his works are unknown, a select few of his poems remain popular and are published frequently in anthologies. Several critics, both Kilmer's contemporaries and modern scholars, disparaged Kilmer's work as being too simple, overly sentimental, and that his style was far too traditional, even archaic.
BiographyEarly years: 1886-1908Kilmer was born on 6 December 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the fourth and youngest child[a] of Annie Ellen Kilburn (1849–1932) and Dr. Frederick Barnett Kilmer (1851–1934), a physician and analytical chemist employed by the Johnson and Johnson Company and inventor of the company's baby powder.[4][5][6] Joyce was named Alfred Joyce Kilmer after Alfred R. Taylor, the curate; and the Rev. Dr. Elisha Brooks Joyce (1857–1926), the rector of Christ Church, the oldest Episcopalian parish in New Brunswick, where the Kilmer family were parishioners.[7][8] Rector Joyce, who served the parish from 1883 to 1916, baptised the young Kilmer.[9] 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.[10] 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...
After graduating from the Rutgers College Grammar 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, facing a repeat of his sophomore year and under pressure from his mother, Kilmer transferred to Columbia University in New York City.[12]
Years of writing and faith: 1909-1917Shortly after his marriage and graduation from Columbia, Kilmer sought teaching positions. In the Autumn of 1908, Kilmer obtained a position teaching Latin in Morristown, New Jersey, and finding that teaching did not demand much of his time, he found considerable time to dedicate to writing. At this time, he submitted essays to Red Cross Notes (including his first published piece, an essay on the "Psychology of Advertising") and poems to Moods, Smart Set, The Sun, The Pathfinder and The Bang. In addition to all this, he wrote book reviews for The Literary Digest, Town & Country, The Nation, and The New York Times. By June 1909, Kilmer had abandoned any aspirations to continue teaching and relocated to New York City, the literary and publishing mecca of the United States, deciding to focus solely on a career as a writer.[17] From 1909 to 1912, Kilmer was employed by Funk and Wagnalls. which was preparing an edition of The Standard Dictionary. According to Hillis,
Shortly after the publication of The Standard Dictionary in 1912, Kilmer became a special writer for the New York Times Review of Books and the New York Times Sunday Magazine and was often engaged in lecturing. Kilmer and his family then moved to Mahwah, New Jersey, where he resided until his service and death in World War I. Kilmer at this time was established as a published poet, and as a popular lecturer. According to Robert Holliday, Kilmer "frequently neglected to make any preparation for his speeches, not even choosing a subject until the beginning of the dinner which was to culminate in a specimen of his oratory. His constant research for the dictionary, and, later on, for his New York Times articles, must have given him a store of knowledge at his fingertips to be produced at a moment's notice for these emergencies."[19] Image:Underwood & Underwood.jpg Joyce Kilmer circa 1910-1915 In 1911, Kilmer's first book of verse, entitled Summer of Love was published. Kilmer would later write that "...some of the poems in it, those inspired by genuine love, are not things of which to be ashamed, and you, understanding, would not be offended by the others."[20] The Kilmers' daughter Rose (1912–1917) was stricken with Poliomyelitis (also known as infantile paralysis) shortly after birth. The Kilmers turned to their religious faith, and in correspondence between Joyce Kilmer and Father James J. Daly, Joyce and Aline began a conversion to Roman Catholicism into which they were received in 1913. In one of these letters, Kilmer writes:
The year 1913 approached Kilmer in trials of suffering and faith but also in success. With the publication of "Trees" in the magazine Poetry, Kilmer gained immense popularity as a poet across the United States. At this time his popularity and success as a lecturer, particularly one seeking to reach a Catholic audience, led Robert Holliday to write: "It is not an unsupported assertion to say that he was in his time and place the laureate of the Catholic Church."[23] Trees and Other Poems (1914) was published the following year. The next few years saw an immense output of work, with Kilmer continuing his lecturing, his literary criticism and essays, writing poetry, and finding the time in 1915 to become poetry editor of Current Literature and contributing editor of Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature. After the publication of The Circus and Other Essays in 1916, the following year would see the publication of three books, Literature in the Making, Main Street and Other Poems, and Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets. War years: 1917-1918Within a few days after the United States declared war on Germany and entered the first World War in April 1917, Kilmer enlisted in the Seventh Regiment of the New York National Guard. In August, Kilmer was initially assigned as a statistician with the 69th Volunteer Infantry Regiment (better known as the "Fighting 69th" and later redesignated the 165th Infantry Regiment), of the 42nd "Rainbow" Division, and quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant. Though he was eligible for commission as an officer and often recommended for such posts during the course of the war, Kilmer refused stating that he would rather be a sergeant in the Fighting 69th than an officer in any other regiment.[24] In September, before Kilmer was deployed, the Kilmer family was met with both with the contrary emotions of tragedy and rejoicing. The Kilmer's daughter Rose had died, and twelve days later, their son Christopher was born.[25] Kilmer sailed to Europe with his regiment on 31 October 1917, arriving in France two weeks later. Before his departure, Kilmer had contracted with publishers to write a book about the war, deciding upon the title Here and There with the Fighting Sixty-Ninth. Kilmer wrote home, stating "I have not written anything in prose or verse since I got here - except statistics - but I've stored up a lot of memories to turn into copy when I get a chance."[26] Unfortunately, Kilmer never was to write such a book. During his time in Europe, Kilmer did write prose sketches and poetry, most notably the poem "Rouge Bouquet", which was written after the First Battalion of the 42nd Division, which had been occupying the Rouge Bouquet forest northeast of the French village of Baccarat, which at the time was a quiet sector of the front—was struck by a heavy artillery bombardment on the afternoon of 12 March 1918 that buried 21 men of the unit, of which 14 remained entombed.[27][28][29] Kilmer sought more hazardous duty and was transferred to the Regimental Intelligence Section, in April 1918. He wrote to his wife, Aline that, "Now I'm doing work I love - and work you may be proud of. None of the drudgery of soldiering, but a double share of glory and thrills."[30] According to Hillis:
During the Second Battle of Marne, there was heavy fighting throughout the last days of July 1918, and on 30 July 1918, Kilmer volunteered to accompany Major William "Wild Bill" Donovan when Donovan's First Battalion was sent to lead the day's attack. During the course of the day, Kilmer led a scouting party to find the position of a German machine gun position. When his comrades found him, some time later, they thought at first that he was peering over the edge of a little hill, where he had crawled for a better view. When he did not answer their call, they ran to him and found him dead. According to Father Duffy wrote: “A bullet had pierced his brain. His body was carried in and buried by the side of Ames. God rest his dear and gallant soul.”[32] Kilmer died, likely immediately, from a sniper's bullet to the head near Muercy Farm, beside the Oureq River near the village of Seringes, in France, on 30 July 1918 at the age of 31. For his valor, Kilmer was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) by the French Republic.[33] 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. "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.[34] Other sources, which state it was written in Chicago, are unsubstantiated. "Trees" has been 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. The text stated below is the original written by Kilmer.
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, one of the most known is "Song of the Open Road" by Ogden Nash (1902–1971) in which Nash wrote:
InspirationAccording 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 do not know what else."[36] 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."[37] 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, which 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.[38] This tree, estimated to be over three hundred years old, was so weakened by age and disease that it had to be removed in 1963.[39] Currently, saplings from acorns of the historic tree are being grown at the site, throughout the Middlesex County area, and in major arboretums around the United States. The remains of the original Kilmer Oak are currently kept in storage at Rutgers University.[40][41] Scansion and analysis"Trees" is a poem of twelve lines. With the exception of the second and eleventh lines, which possess 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.[42] Despite its deceptive simplicity 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.[43] Criticism and influenceJoyce Kilmer is a poet whose reputation is staked largely on the widespread popularity of one poem, namely "Trees", and who because of an untimely and early death did not have the opportunity to develop from his early work into a more mature poet and expand the amount of material within the corpus of his work. Because "Trees" is often dismissed by modern critics and scholars as simple verse, much of Kilmer's work, especially his literary criticism, has slipped into obscurity and as a result is ignored. Only a very few of his poems have appear in anthologies, and with the exception of "Trees" and to a much lesser extent "Rouge Bouquet", almost none have obtained lasting widespread popularity.[44] The entire corpus of Kilmer's work appears in the early years of the modernist movement, especially before the influence of the Lost Generation. In the years after Kilmer's death, poetry entered new directions, driven by the works of T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) and Ezra Pound. The years in which Kilmer was writing, and the conservatism and traditional style he used, were the last of the Romantic era. Kilmer's work is often criticized for being poetry that does not break free of the traditional modes, rhyme and meter, or themes and that it is too sentimental to be taken seriously.[45] Kilmer's early works were inspired by, and were imitative of, the poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley, and William Butler Yeats. It was later through the influence of works by Coventry Patmore, Francis Thompson, and those of Alice Meynell and her children Viola Meynell and Francis Meynell, that Kilmer seems to have become interested in Catholicism.[46] Kilmer wrote of his influences:
Because he was initially raised Episcopalian (or Anglican), Kilmer became literary editor of the Anglican weekly, The Churchman before his conversion to Roman Catholicism. During this time he did considerable research into 16th and 17th century Anglican poets as well as metaphysical, or mystic poets of that time, including George Herbert, Thomas Traherne, Robert Herrick, Bishop Coxe, and Robert Stephen Hawker, the Vicar of Morwenstow, the latter whom he referred to as "a coast life-guard in a cassock." These poets also had an influence on Kilmer's writings.[48] Critics compared to British Catholic writers, Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, suggesting that his reputation might have risen to the level where he would have been considered their American counterpart if not for his untimely death.[49].[50] LegacySeveral municipalities across the United States have named parks, schools and streets and squares in honor of Joyce Kilmer, including his hometown of New Brunswick, New Jersey, which renamed Codwise Avenue, the street on which he was born, "Joyce Kilmer Avenue."
Works
Notesa Though Joyce was the fourth and youngest child in his family, two of his siblings, Ellen Annie Kilmer (1875-1876) and Charles Willoughby Kilmer (1880), died before his birth, while his oldest brother, Anda Frederick Kilmer (1873-1899), died when Joyce was thirteen years old, most likely a suicide in a Philadelphia hotel.[5] Background resourcesCitations
Books and printed materials
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