Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) is remembered as a patriot, a family man, a veteran, and a well-known poet. His poetry was so widely-read that when he was killed in World War I, it was front-page news across the nation.
Kilmer, a writer and editor, wrote his poem, “Trees,” in 1913. It was published in Poetry magazine that year. Its simplicity and sentiment became well-loved by the public, and the poem was published in many newspapers across the nation.
Today the memory of Kilmer has faded, but this year (2025) he was selected by the nonprofit, Operation Restore Decency, as a veteran to honor on Veterans Day. (Each year the organization selects a particular veteran to remember to personalize the sacrifice all veterans make in preserving peace and freedom for Americans.)
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Kilmer’s Early Life
Alfred Joyce Kilmer was born in 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His father was a physician and worked as an analytical chemist for Johnson and Johnson Company.
Kilmer was the youngest of four children. He was named for two Episcopal priests at the Episcopal parish in New Brunswick. However, Kilmer disliked the name Alfred, and he comfortably took to being called Joyce.
The children attended Rutgers College Grammar School. Throughout his education, he was particularly drawn to working on school newspapers.
When he graduated from high school, Kilmer accept a scholarship to Rutgers College. Harry J. Cargas, who wrote a biography of Joyce Kilmer, writes that Kilmer always struggled with math. In college, the Rutgers administration wanted him to repeat a year because of his math grade. His mother was adamant that Kilmer not be held back. She helped him transfer to Columbia University where the math requirement was less onerous at that time.
After graduation from Columbia in 1908, he married his college sweetheart, Aline Murray (1888-1941). They eventually had five children.
First Job
Joyce Kilmer’s first job was teaching Latin at Morristown High School in New Jersey. His dream was to be a writer, so nights and weekends, he wrote and submitted essays, poems, and book reviews to various publications.
In 1910, the Kilmers decided that living in New York City would offer him better career opportunities. They found an apartment on 184th Street that was large enough to hold the family.
Once settled in New York City, Kilmer applied to several trade publications and landed a job at one of them. He could support his family and gain experience in publishing while still having time to submit articles to other publications.
By 1912, Kilmer was a special writer for The New York Times Review of Books and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. While it was not a staff job, he was in the office so much that editors assigned him a desk.
But the family needed more space at home. I n 1912, he and Aline moved to a house in Mahwah, New Jersey. That year their daughter Rose was born and shortly after birth she was stricken with infantile paralysis, an illness with no cure at that time.
The Joyces felt helpless and turned to the church for comfort. Joyce Kilmer converted to Catholicism at this time. This would later influence his career as he obtained a strong following among Catholics.
Publication of “Trees”
In August of 1913, Joyce Kilmer’s poem, “Trees,” was published in Poetry magazine. Something about the verse caught the zeitgeist. People loved the simplicity and the sentiment of it. Newspapers purchased the rights to the poem, and it was read by many Americans. Kilmer was soon invited to lecture across the country, primarily to Catholic audiences.
The following year a book, Trees and Other Poems, was published. Soon three more poetry collections of Kilmer’s were published. He continued writing as well as traveling on the lecture circuit, though he tried to be home as much as possible because of Rose and the other children.
World War I
World War I, also called the Great War, began in 1914. The war began after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria while he was visiting Serbia. Austria blamed Serbia for the attack.
On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed. Countries in Europe were picking sides. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany. World War I had begun.
The United States resisted entering into a conflict on the other side of the ocean. Then on May 7, 1915, Germany torpedoed the passenger ship, The Lusitania. Almost 1200 passengers were killed, including 128 Americans. Though the news was tragic and unsettling, President Woodrow Wilson obtained a pledge from Germany that no more civilian ships would be attacked.
But the country was changing. Joyce Kilmer was commissioned to write a poem about the sinking of the passenger ship. He anthropomorphizes the Lusitania but it works:
The White Ships and the Red
The pale green waves about her
Were swiftly, strangely dyed,
By the great scarlet stream that flowed
From out her wounded side.
And all her decks were scarlet
And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships
And stained them through and through.
…
“I went not forth to battle,
I carried friendly men,
The children played about my decks,
The women sang — and then —
And then — the sun blushed scarlet
And Heaven hid its face,
The world that God created
Became a shameful place!
This poem is credited with beginning to turn the tide as to whether or not the United States should enter World War I.
Pledge Forgotten
By 1917, Germany had done away with any pledges to not torpedo other ships in the Atlantic. Soon merchant ships were being hit. In addition, the Zimmermann telegram was discovered. The telegram indicated that Germany and Mexico might work together to undertake war against the U.S. In light of these new events, the American sentiment about the war changed.
On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany.
Kilmer Enlists
Only a few days after this declaration, Joyce Kilmer enlisted. As a 31-year-old family man, he was not required to join up, but Kilmer was a patriot and saw military service as an important duty.
Initially, he was part of the New York National Guard. In August the Guard unit was assigned to the 165th Infantry Regiment (the “Fighting 69th).
Kilmer’s basic training was in Camp Mills in Garden City, Long Island. To avoid unnecessary time away from the family, he and Aline rented a home in Larchmont, New York. Aline was pregnant again, and Rose’s health continued to deteriorate. While the travel between Long Island and Larchmont was not easy, Kilmer could still get home now and then.
Just before he was sent overseas, Rose died. Son Christopher was born shortly after.
Fighting in France
The “Fighting 69th” arrived in France and served as part of the 42nd Infantry Division that became known as the “Rainbow Division.” (It was called the Rainbow Division because it was made up of National Guard units from 26 states.)
In March of 1918, the U.S. troops were under French command near Baccarat, France. They needed to learn about the geography of the area and gain experience in trench warfare. It was a rough beginning.
On March 7, 1918, a German shell caused the collapse of one of the dugouts in the wooded area known as the Rouge Bouquet. In the aftermath, almost two dozen members of the Fighting 69th died.
Kilmer was aghast at what he witnessed. Within a few days he penned his poem, “Rouge Bouquet.”
In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave to-day,
Build by never a spade nor pick
Yet covered with earth ten meters thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Nor taste the Summertime.
For Death came flying through the air
And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,
Touched his prey and left them there,
Clay to clay.
He hid their bodies stealthily
In the soil of the land they fought to free
And fled away.
The poem concludes:
From the wood called Rouge Bouquet,
A delicate cloud of bugle notes
That softly say:
“Farewell!
Farewell!
Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!
And your memory shine like the morning-star.
Brave and dear,
Shield us here.
Farewell!”
The poem was first published in Stars and Stripes, August 16, 1918. (Kilmer did not live to know of its publication.) It is now a tradition to read the poem at funeral services for fallen members of the regiment.
Tragic End for Kilmer
In April 1918, Kilmer was transferred to the military intelligence section of his regiment to work under Major “Wild Bill” Donovan. When Donovan’s adjutant was killed, Kilmer was selected to move up temporarily to aid Donovan.
By the end of July, the fighting in the Second Battle of the Marne was fierce. Major Donovan needed someone to go on reconnaissance with him for the locations of the German machine gun nests that were wreaking havoc on the regiment.
On July 30, Kilmer was called upon to accompany Major Donovan as they went out to explore where the Germans were positioned. Kilmer and Donovan left together, but each went a slightly different direction.
Donovan returned to headquarters but no one heard from Kilmer. When it seemed safe, another soldier left the trenches. He soon found Kilmer’s body. He was killed by a single gunshot. Military records place his death on the battlefield near the Ourcq River that fed into the village of Seringes-et-Nesles in northern France.
Kilmer was buried in a cemetery near where he fell in the Ois-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial. For his valor, he later was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French Republic.
In the United States, a cenotaph was erected to his memory on the Kilmer family plot in Elmwood Cemetery in North Brunswick, New Jersey.
Due to Joyce Kilmer’s prominence, a memorial mass was celebrated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on October 14, 1918. Other honors were to follow over time.
Many Honors Followed
People across the country thought well of Joyce Kilmer. His poetry and his honorable service to the country moved them. On July 31 1931, a tree was dedicated in Joyce Kilmer’s memory along Literary Walk in Central Park. The ceremony was held under the auspices of the Catholic Writers Guild, and Reverend Francis B. Duffy, chaplain of the Rainbow Division in which Kilmer Served, spoke at the memorial service.
Also in the early 1930s, the North Carolina Veterans of Foreign Wars unit aspired to establish a place of respite for its members. They finally selected a section of forest about 100 miles west of Asheville, N.C., in the Nantahala National Forest. The beautiful secluded area features old growth where hikers can enjoy poplar, hemlock, red and white oak, basswood, beech and sycamore. It was officially dedicated in 1936, and today, the 3,800-acre Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is now a part of the 17,000-acre Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness, adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Because Joyce Kilmer was so loved, there are still more memorials to him. You can find schools, parks, and even a highway rest stop (in New Jersey) named in memory of Joyce Kilmer.
What Tree Inspired “Trees?”
When people hear or read the poem, “Trees,” they often wonder what tree or trees Joyce Kilmer was inspired by when he wrote his poem. Residents near Notre Dame and Rutgers, as well as people in Swansea, New Hampshire, and Larchmont, New York, have all considered that their trees might have been the inspiration.
Alex Michelini, founder of the Joyce Kilmer Society of Mahwah, felt compelled to explore this issue. He and his wife traveled the country, visiting memorials to Kilmer and investigating any place that had archival information related to the poet. Ultimately, Michelini found relevant archival papers about Kilmer at Georgetown University.
Michelini knew that Kilmer always dated the notebooks in which he wrote his poems. When the Georgetown library brought forward a 1913 notebook with “Trees” in it, Michelini knew he found what he needed.
The poem was dated February 2, 1913, a time when the Kilmers had little ones and lived in the house in Mahwah, New Jersey. It became clear that the likely trees in question could be viewed from the upper story windows. Michelini’s hunch was further supported when he located a letter written by Aline that described how the poem came to be written. Aline verified this story.
Kilmer and Poetry
Much has been written about the worth of Joyce Kilmer’s poetry. Was it any good? Many have made fun of the poems and their rhyming simplicity and common subjects. At Columbia University, there has long been an Alfred Joyce Kilmer Bad Poetry Contest. But is this fair?
Kilmer was born in 1886, at a time when simple poetry was appreciated as both popular entertainment as well as moral instruction. Many churches celebrated poetry, and schools often required students to memorize poems as we a way to learn to read, to focus on concepts, and for students to master the art of oral presentation. The fact that the subject matter in his poems is about simple things makes them all the more accessible.
The lovely aspect of a Kilmer poem was the succinct, if sometimes sentimental, presentation of a difficult theme. Look back at his poem about the tragedy of The Lusitania. By anthropomorphizing the ship, he moves the reader into the scene of the tragedy and explains the innocence of those who were killed. Not many writers can deliver a gut punch in a piece that takes just a couple of minutes to read.
Like all things, the concepts and theories behind what makes good poetry changes over time. After Kilmer, writers like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot came forward with free verse on deeper subject matter, and newspapers no longer wanted or needed to publish simple verse.
But for his time, Joyce Kilmer was a hero. He helped people grapple with issues ranging from the simple to the complex. And when the U.S. entered the war, Kilmer, the patriot and family man, was right there to do his duty.
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2025
Joyce Kilmer was brought to my attention this autumn (2025) when LTC (retired) Debjeet Sarkar, M.D., and his organization, Operation Restore Decency publicized their Veterans Day event in Central Park.
Sarkar arranged for the Kilmer plaque at the foot of the tree along Literary Walk in Central Park to be refinished. He planned to hold a ceremony to rededicate it in Kilmer’s memory. Alex Michelini, founder of the Joyce Kilmer Society spoke about Kilmer’s life. Navy Veteran Stephen DeLuca, SJD, representing Taps for Veterans, played the Star Spangled Banner and Taps.
It was a moving and truly special way to recognize Veterans Day with other like-minded people.
Thanks, Kate for this article and for attending our event last month!
What you’re doing is important. I was delighted to be there.