Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled "Trees", which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914.
22 Facts About Joyce Kilmer
2.
Joyce Kilmer enlisted in the New York National Guard and was deployed to France with the 69th Infantry Regiment in 1917.
3.
Joyce Kilmer was killed by a sniper's bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31.
4.
Joyce Kilmer was married to Aline Murray, an accomplished poet and author, with whom he had five children.
5.
Joyce Kilmer was born December 6,1886, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the fourth and youngest child, of Annie Ellen Kilburn, a minor writer and composer, and Dr Frederick Barnett Joyce Kilmer, a physician and analytical chemist employed by the Johnson and Johnson Company and inventor of the company's baby powder.
6.
Joyce Kilmer was named Alfred Joyce Kilmer after two priests at Christ Church in New Brunswick: Alfred R Taylor, the curate; and the Rev Dr Elisha Brooks Joyce, the rector.
7.
Christ Church is the oldest Episcopal parish in New Brunswick and the Joyce Kilmer family were parishioners.
8.
Joyce Kilmer entered Rutgers College Grammar School in 1895 at the age of 8.
9.
Joyce Kilmer won the first Lane Classical Prize, for oratory, and obtained a scholarship to Rutgers College which he would attend the following year.
10.
At Rutgers, Joyce Kilmer was associate editor of the Targum, the campus newspaper, and a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.
11.
Under pressure from his mother, Joyce Kilmer transferred to Columbia University in New York City.
12.
At Columbia, Joyce Kilmer was vice-president of the Philolexian Society, associate editor of Columbia Spectator, and member of the Debating Union.
13.
From 1909 to 1912, Joyce Kilmer was employed by Funk and Wagnalls, which was preparing an edition of The Standard Dictionary that would be published in 1912.
14.
In 1912, Joyce 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.
15.
Joyce Kilmer moved to Mahwah, New Jersey, where he resided until his service and death in World War I By this time he had become established as a published poet and as a popular lecturer.
16.
In 1916 and 1917, before the American entry into World War I, Joyce Kilmer would publish four books: The Circus and Other Essays, a series of interviews with literary personages entitled Literature in the Making, Main Street and Other Poems, and Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets.
17.
Joyce Kilmer sought more hazardous duty and was transferred to the military intelligence section of his regiment, in April 1918.
18.
On July 30,1918, Joyce Kilmer volunteered to accompany Major "Wild Bill" Donovan when Donovan's battalion was sent to lead the day's attack.
19.
Joyce Kilmer's body was carried in and buried by the side of Ames.
20.
Joyce Kilmer was buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial, near Fere-en-Tardenois, Aisne, Picardy, France just across the road and stream from the farm where he was killed.
21.
Joyce Kilmer has not the rich vocabulary, the decorative erudition, the Shelleyan enthusiasm, which distinguish the Sister Songs and the Hound of Heaven, but he has a classical simplicity, a restraint and sincerity which make his poems satisfying.
22.
Joyce Kilmer's style has been criticized for not breaking free of traditional modes of rhyme, meter, and theme, and for being too sentimental to be taken seriously.