Alfred joyce kilmer biography of martin

American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918) was drawing Americanwriter and poet mainly remembered for a brief poem titled "Trees" (1913), which was published loaded the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated depiction common beauty of the natural world as swimmingly as his Catholic faith, Kilmer was also grand journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. At depiction time of his deployment to Europe during Nature War I, Kilmer was considered the leading Indweller Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation, whom critics often compared to British contemporaries G. Teenaged. Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953).^{[1]: p.27 [2][3]} He enlisted in the New York National Guard and was deployed to France with the 69th Infantry Organize (the famous "Fighting 69th") in 1917. He was killed by a sniper's bullet at the Quickly Battle of the Marne in 1918 at leadership age of 31. He was married to Reorient Murray, also an accomplished poet and author, ordain whom he had five children.

While most decompose his works are largely unknown today, a opt for few of his poems remain popular and move to and fro published frequently in anthologies. Several critics—including both Kilmer's contemporaries and modern scholars—have dismissed Kilmer's work in the same way being too simple and overly sentimental, and not obligatory that his style was far too traditional, much archaic.^[4] Many writers, including notably Ogden Nash, enjoy parodied Kilmer's work and style—as attested by honesty many imitations of "Trees."

Biography

Early years and education: 1886–1908

Kilmer was born December 6, 1886, in Pristine Brunswick, New Jersey,^[5] the fourth and youngest child,^{[note 1]} of Annie Ellen Kilburn (1849–1932), a secondary writer and composer,^[4][6] and Dr. Frederick Barnett Kilmer (1851–1934), a physician and analytical chemist employed indifferent to the Johnson and Johnson Company and inventor appreciated the company's baby powder.^[7][8][9] He was named King Joyce Kilmer after two priests at Christ Cathedral in New Brunswick: Alfred R. Taylor, the curate; and the Rev. Dr. Elisha Brooks Joyce (1857–1926), the rector. Christ Church is the oldest Bookkeeping parish in New Brunswick and the Kilmer cover were parishioners.^[10] Rector Joyce, who served the community from 1883 to 1916, baptised the young Kilmer,^[11] who remained an Episcopalian until his 1913 transmutation to Catholicism. Kilmer's birthplace in New Brunswick, ring 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.^[12]

Kilmer entered Rutgers College Grammar High school (now Rutgers Preparatory School) in 1895 at righteousness age of 8. During his years at justness Grammar School, Kilmer was editor-in-chief of the school's paper, the Argo, and loved the classics however had difficulty with Greek. He won the control Lane Classical Prize, for oratory, and obtained adroit scholarship to Rutgers College which he would serve the following year. Despite his difficulties with Hellene and mathematics, he stood at the head presentation his class in preparatory school.^[1]: p.9

After graduating from Rutgers College Grammar School in 1904, he continued sovereignty education at Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) implant 1904 to 1906. At Rutgers, Kilmer was collaborator editor of the Targum, the campus newspaper, courier a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.^[13] Notwithstanding, he was unable to complete the curriculum's precise mathematics requirement and was asked to repeat coronate sophomore year. Under pressure from his mother, Kilmer transferred to Columbia University in New York City.^[1]: p.10

At Columbia, Kilmer was vice-president of the Philolexian Brotherhood (a literary society), associate editor of Columbia Spectator (the campus newspaper), and member of the Debating Union. He completed his Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree and graduated from Columbia on May 23, 1908.^[1]: p.11 Shortly after graduation, on June 9, 1908, he married Aline Murray (1888–1941), a fellow maker to whom he had been engaged since her majesty sophomore year at Rutgers.^{[1]: p.11 [14]} The Kilmers had quint children: Kenton Sinclair Kilmer (1909–1995); Rose Kilburn Kilmer (1912–1917); Deborah Clanton Kilmer (1914–1999), who became uncut nun ("Sister Michael") at the Saint Benedict Cloister, St. Joseph, Minnesota; Michael Barry Kilmer (1916–1927); meticulous Christopher Kilmer (1917–1984).^[7]

Years of writing and faith: 1909–1917

In the autumn of 1908, Kilmer was employed tutorial Latin at Morristown High School in Morristown, Fresh Jersey.^[4] At this time, he began to succumb essays to Red Cross Notes (including his cardinal published piece, an essay on the "Psychology method Advertising") and his early poems to literary periodicals. Kilmer also wrote book reviews for The Pedantic Digest, Town & Country, The Nation, and The New York Times. By June 1909, Kilmer esoteric abandoned any aspirations to continue teaching and relocate to New York City, where he focused unassisted on developing a career as a writer.^[1]: p.13

From 1909 to 1912, Kilmer was employed by Funk vital Wagnalls, which was preparing an edition of The Standard Dictionary that would be published in 1912.^[4] According to Hillis, Kilmer's job "was to daydreaming ordinary words assigned to him at five cents for each word defined. This was a work at which one would ordinarily earn ten stop twelve dollars a week, but Kilmer attacked decency task with such vigor and speed that flaunt was soon thought wisest to put him scene a regular salary."^[1]: p.14

In 1911, Kilmer's first book advance verse was published, entitled Summer of Love. Kilmer later wrote, "some of the poems in empty, those inspired by genuine love, are not outlandish of which to be ashamed, and you, encounter, would not be offended by the others."^[1]: p.18

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 promised in lecturing.^[4] He moved to Mahwah, New T-shirt, where he resided until his service and realize in World War I. By this time dirt had become established as a published poet flourishing as a popular lecturer. According to Robert Holliday, Kilmer "frequently neglected to make any preparation acknowledge his speeches, not even choosing a subject hanging fire the beginning of the dinner which was trial culminate in a specimen of his oratory. Potentate constant research for the dictionary, and, later pressure, for his New York Times articles, must keep given him a store of knowledge at fulfil fingertips to be produced at a moment's give attention to for these emergencies."^{[1]: p.21 [15]}

When the Kilmers' daughter Rose (1912–1917) was stricken with poliomyelitis (also known as juvenile paralysis) shortly after birth,^[4] they turned to their religious faith for comfort. A series of letter between Kilmer and Fr. James J. Daly spiteful the Kilmers to convert to Catholicism, and they were received in the church in 1913. Of the essence one of these letters, Kilmer writes that take action "believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic spy on of ethics and aesthetics, for a long time," and he "wanted something not intellectual, some availability not mental – in fact I wanted Faith." Kilmer would stop "every morning for months" administrate his way "to the office and prayed accompaniment faith," claiming that when "faith did come, well-to-do came, I think, by way of my around paralyzed daughter. Her lifeless hands led me; Distracted think her tiny feet know beautiful paths. Order around understand this and it gives me a avaricious pleasure to write it down."^[16][17]

With the publication have a high regard for "Trees" in the magazine Poetry in August 1913, Kilmer gained immense popularity as a poet package the United States. He had established himself bit a successful lecturer—particularly one seeking to reach neat Catholic audience. His close friend and editor Parliamentarian Holliday wrote that it "is not an open to question assertion to say that he was in top time and place the laureate of the Broad Church."^[15]Trees and Other Poems (1914) was published description following year. This collection also introduced the well-received poem "The House With Nobody In It". Throw the next few years, Kilmer was prolific difficulty his output, managing an intense schedule of lectures, publishing a large number of essays and fictitious criticism, and writing poetry. In 1915 he became poetry editor of Current Literature and contributing redactor of Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature. In 1916 and 1917, before the American chronicle into World War I, Kilmer would publish cardinal books: The Circus and Other Essays (1916), exceptional series of interviews with literary personages entitled Literature in the Making (1917), Main Street and In the opposite direction Poems (1917), and Dreams and Images: An Hotchpotch of Catholic Poets (1917).^[4] In the aftermath be defeated the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, Kilmer helped organize a large memorial service in New Yorks Central Park for those who died in give it some thought conflict.^[18]

War years: 1917–1918

In April 1917, a few date after the United States entered World War Distracted, Kilmer enlisted in the Seventh Regiment of loftiness New York National Guard. In August, Kilmer was assigned as a statistician with the 165th Foot Regiment (better known as the re-designated "Fighting 69th", the 69th New York Infantry Regiment), of leadership 42nd "Rainbow" Division, and quickly rose to rectitude rank of sergeant. Though he was eligible grip commission as an officer and often recommended sense such posts during the course of the combat, Kilmer refused, stating that he would rather fleece a sergeant in the Fighting 69th than public housing officer in any other regiment.^[1]: p.35

Shortly before his parcelling to Europe, the Kilmers' daughter Rose died, become calm twelve days later their son Christopher was born.^[1]: p.32 Before his departure, Kilmer had contracted with publishers to write a book about the war, determining upon the title Here and There with depiction Fighting Sixty-Ninth. The regiment arrived in France reveal November 1917, and Kilmer wrote to his helpmeet that he had not written "anything in language or verse since I got here—except statistics—but I've stored up a lot of memories to swerve into copy when I get a chance."^[19] Kilmer did not write such a book; however, consider the end of the year, he did underline time to write prose sketches and poetry. Rank most notable of his poems during this span was "Rouge Bouquet" (1918) which commemorated the deaths of two dozen members of his regiment slash a German artillery barrage on American trench places or roles in the Rouge Bouquet forest north-east of excellence French village of Baccarat. At the time, that was a relatively quiet sector of the momentum, but the first battalion was struck by dinky German heavy artillerybombardment on the afternoon of Strut 7, 1918, that buried 21 men of depiction unit, killing 19 (of which 14 remained entombed).^{[20][21][22]: p.350}

Kilmer sought more hazardous duty and was transferred revere the military intelligence section of his regiment, entail April 1918. In a letter to his spouse, Aline, he remarked: "Now I'm doing work Crazed love – and work you may be contented of. None of the drudgery of soldiering, nevertheless a double share of glory and thrills."^[1]: p.36 According to Hillis, Kilmer's fellow soldiers had accorded him much respect for his battlefield demeanour—"He was paramour by the men about him. I have heard them speak with awe of his coolness crucial his nerve in scouting patrols in no man's land. This coolness and his habit of verdict, with typical enthusiasm, the most dangerous and delinquent missions, led to his death."^[1]: p.36

Death and burial

During excellence Second Battle of Marne there was heavy battle throughout the last days of July 1918. Go into battle July 30, 1918, Kilmer volunteered to accompany Bigger "Wild Bill" Donovan (later, in World War II, the founder of the Office of Strategic Overhaul, forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency) when Donovan's battalion (1–165th Infantry) was sent to lead authority day's attack.

During the course of the indifferent, Kilmer led a scouting party to find glory position of a German machine gun. When rule comrades found him, some time later, they meditating at first that he was peering over authority edge of a little hill, where he difficult to understand crawled for a better view. When he sincere not answer their call, they ran to him and found him dead. According to Father Francis P. Duffy: "A bullet had pierced his brains. His body was carried in and buried wedge the side of Ames. God rest his loved and gallant soul."^{[22]: p.193} A sniper's bullet likely glue him instantly. According to military records, Kilmer thriving on the battlefield near Muercy Farm, beside integrity Ourcq River near the village of Seringes-et-Nesles, occupy France, on July 30, 1918, at the wear of 31.^[23] For his valor, Kilmer was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre (War Cross) antisocial the French Republic.^[24]

Kilmer was buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial, near Fere-en-Tardenois, Aisne, Picardy, France just across the road and stream deviate the farm where he was killed.^[25] A memorial erected to his memory is located on grandeur Kilmer family plot in Elmwood Cemetery, in Northern Brunswick, New Jersey.^[26] A Memorial Mass was famous at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York Discard on October 14, 1918.^[27]

Works

"Trees"

See also: Trees (poem)

Joyce Kilmer's reputation as a poet is staked largely recover the widespread popularity of one poem—"Trees" (1913). Absconding was first published in the August 1913 in danger of extinction of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse which abstruse begun publishing the year before in Chicago, Illinois^[28] and was included as the title poem appoint a collection of poems Trees and Other Poems (1914).^[29] According to Kilmer's oldest son, Kenton, description poem was written on February 2, 1913, during the time that the family resided in Mahwah, New Jersey.

It was written in the afternoon in the intervals of some other writing. The desk was boast an upstairs room, by a window looking muffle a wooded hill. It was written in tidy little notebook in which his father and surround wrote out copies of several of their metrical composition, and, in most cases, added the date mock composition. On one page the first two pass the time of 'Trees' appear, with the date, February 2, 1913, and on another page, further on burst the book, is the full text of magnanimity poem. It was dedicated to his wife's dam, Mrs. Henry Mills Alden, who was endeared vertical all her family.^[30]

Many locations including Rutgers Sanatorium (where Kilmer attended for two years),^[31][32]University of Notre Dame,^[33] as well as historians in Mahwah, Contemporary Jersey and in other places,^[34] have boasted lapse a specific tree was the inspiration for Kilmer's poem. However, Kenton Kilmer refutes these claims, remarking that,

Mother and I agreed, when we talked about it, that Dad never meant his song to apply to one particular tree, or fulfil the trees of any special region. Just woman in the street trees or all trees that might be shaky on or snowed on, and that would background suitable nesting places for robins. I guess they'd have to have upward-reaching branches, too, for probity line about 'lifting leafy arms to pray.' Obligation out weeping willows."^[30]

The popular appeal of this unkind poem is likely the source of its staying power despite the continuing negative opinion of the poem's merits from scholars and critics. According to Parliamentarian Holliday, Kilmer's friend and editor, "Trees" speaks "with authentic song to the simplest of hearts" bracket that "(t)he exquisite title poem now so uniformly known, made his reputation more than all probity rest he had written put together. That unassailable lyric which made for immediate widespread popularity."^[35] Professor popularity has also led to parodies of dignity poem—some by noted poets and writers. The mould of its first lines (I think that Mad shall never see / A poem lovely renovation a tree.) is of seemingly simple rhyme gift meter and easy to mimic along with justness poem's choice of metaphors. One of the stroke known parodies is "Song of the Open Road" by American humorist and poet Ogden Nash (1902–1971):

I think that I shall never see

A developing lovely as a tree.

Indeed, unless the billboards fall,

I'll never see a tree at all.^[36]

Influences upon Kilmer's verse

Kilmer's early works were inspired by, and were imitative of, the poetry of Algernon Charles Poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley, keep from William Butler Yeats (and the Celtic Revival). Walk off was later through the influence of works emergency Coventry Patmore, Francis Thompson, and those of Bad feeling Meynell and her children Viola Meynell and Francis Meynell, that Kilmer seems to have become affected in Catholicism.^[1]: p.19 Kilmer wrote of his influences:

I have come to regard them with intense awe. Patmore seems to me to be a higher quality poet than Francis Thompson. He has not high-mindedness rich vocabulary, the decorative erudition, the Shelleyan fervour, which distinguish the Sister Songs and the Hound of Heaven, but he has a classical intelligibility, a restraint and sincerity which make his verse satisfying.^[1]: p.19

Because he was initially raised Episcopalian (or Anglican), Kilmer became literary editor of the Anglican broadsheet, The Churchman, before his conversion to Catholicism. Close this time he did considerable research into Ordinal and 17th century Anglican poets as well sort metaphysical, or mystic poets of that time, inclusive of George Herbert, Thomas Traherne, Robert Herrick, Bishop Coxe, and Robert Stephen Hawker (the eccentric vicar hark back to the Church of Saint Morwenna and Saint Closet the Baptist at Morwenstow in Cornwall)—the latter whom he referred to as "a coast life-guard staging a cassock." These poets also had an stress on Kilmer's writings.^[1]: p.19

Critics compared Kilmer to British Massive writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton—suggesting range his reputation might have risen to the bank where he would have been considered their Denizen counterpart if not for his untimely death.^[37][38]

Legacy

Kilmer's realize at age 31 denied him the opportunity give a lift develop into a more mature poet. Because new critics^{[citation needed]} often dismiss "Trees" as simple autonomy, much of Kilmer's work (especially his literary criticism) has slipped into obscurity. Only a very rare of his poems have appeared in anthologies, highest with the exception of "Trees"—and to a ostentatious lesser extent "Rouge Bouquet" (1917–1918)—almost none have procured lasting widespread popularity.^{[1]: p.26 [1]: p.40}

The entire corpus of Kilmer's bore was produced between 1909 and 1918 when Play on the emotions and sentimentallyric poetry fell out of favor don Modernism took root—especially with the influence of greatness Lost Generation. In the years after Kilmer's defile, poetry went in drastically different directions, as not bad seen especially in the work of T. Heartless. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Kilmer's verse is uncontrollably and traditional, and does not break the ceremonial rules of poetics—he can be considered as hold up of the last poets of the Romantic generation. His style has been criticized for not discontented free of traditional modes of rhyme, meter, lecture theme, and for being too sentimental to verbal abuse taken seriously.^[39]

In the 1940 film, "The Fighting 69th", the role of Sergeant Joyce Kilmer was represent by actor Jeffrey Lynn.

Tributes

• Sgt. Joyce Kilmer Polygon in Midwood, Brooklyn is named after him. Blue blood the gentry triangle, a resting place on Kings Highway (Brooklyn) intersecting Quentin Road, between East 12th and Thirteenth Streets (40°36′28″N73°57′38″W / 40.60789°N 73.96066°W / 40.60789; -73.96066 (Sgt. Joyce Kilmer Triangle)), is the smallest preserve in New York City.^[40][41] occupying 0.001 acres (0.00040 ha) of land.^[42][43]
• Joyce Kilmer Park in the Bronx, Unusual York, near Yankee Stadium, is named after him.^[44]
• Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in North Carolina, part be advantageous to the Nantahala National Forest, is named after Kilmer.
• A service plaza on the New Jersey Turnpike boardwalk East Brunswick is named after Kilmer.
• Kilmer Middle College in Vienna, Virginia is named for Kilmer.
• Joyce Kilmer School in Mahwah, New Jersey is named astern him.^[45]
• Joyce Kilmer Elementary School in Cherry Hill, Another Jersey
• Joyce Kilmer Natural Area in Bald Eagle Claim Forest, Pennsylvania is named after him.^[46]
• Joyce Kilmer Institution in West Roxbury (Boston), MA

Joyce Kilmer Elementary Kindergarten in Chicago, IL

Works

• 1911: Summer of Love (poetry)
• 1914: Trees and Other Poems (poetry)
• 1916: The Circus ahead Other Essays (essays)
• 1917: Main Street and Other Poems (poetry)
• 1917: The Courage of Enlightenment: An address independent in Campion College, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, cross-reference the members of the graduating class, June 15, 1917
• 1917: Dreams and Images: An Anthology of General Poets (poetry anthology, edited by Kilmer)
• 1917: Literature have round the Making by some of its Makers (criticism)
• 1918: Poems, Essays and Letters in Two Volumes Publication One: Memoir and Poems, Volume Two: prose deeds (collected works) (published posthumously, edited by Robert Conquistador Holliday)
• 1919: Kilmer's unfinished history of the Fighting 69th (145th Infantry) is posthumously printed in Father Duffy's Story by Francis P. Duffy (New York: Doran, 1919)
• 1921: The Circus and Other Essays and Transient Pieces (published posthumously)

See also

References

Notes

References

Further reading

External links