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A Tribute to Joyce Kilmer
The above words open the memoir of Joyce Kilmer written by Robert Cortes Holliday, a friend who described himself as the "one who among all of Joyce Kilmer's friends owes him the greatest debt of friendship...."[2] An excellent though brief memoir, it opens the first volume of Holliday’s three-volume collection of Kilmer’s works, Joyce Kilmer: Poems, Essays and Letters. Fashioned as it was by a man who became Joyce's first professional friend and a "sharer as far as was possible in each new [Kilmer] success,"[3] the memoir is a pageant of Kilmer's activities: literary, familial, social, military. It is as true as possible to the "supreme trust" Holliday put into writing it. It is obviously a memoir penned by a talented writer, devoted admirer, and knowledgeable confidant. It is a contemporary memoir written in 1918. It is part of a 1918 two-volume collection and the 1921 three-volume collection, incorporating a volume that had been published separately in 1914. The combined two-volume collection (the first two volumes in a single book) was reprinted in 1936. Of the few thousand copies printed, very few have survived the deterioration of printed matter, the capriciousness of passing literary values, the liquidation of libraries public and private, and the transience of time. So, unfortunately, it is not the luck of those pages "to abide many days" – except in minds of those who have read them (most of those souls long departed), and in some few antiquarian book stores where you might yet find them among "a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore." The sad fact is that those pages, however worthy of enduring because of quality of the work included or the merit of the subject described, are all but lost to futurity. The memories and reminiscences on those pages were contemporary in the sense of being freshly and freely applied to the times, and in another sense of being familiar with Kilmer's literary world. Holliday's memoir was the story of a "bright chapter in the history of our time."[4] But it was merely a Cliff’s Notes summary of the unwritten book that better presents Kilmer's contribution to the world as a writer and a man. Holliday's combination of memoir and anthology was not "popular" in the sense of commercialized non-fiction, such as an expose of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his work, nor in the sense of an historical biography, such as one would pick up to, say, read about life and writings of Mark Twain. Though published with the contemporary advantage that they were written by a close friend at a time when Kilmer was heralded as a hero and poet, these pages had a distinct disadvantage in that Joyce Kilmer was taken unexpectedly from this world as a casualty in World War I and his work would be minimally anthologized after that. No college professor of the 1930s could take the opportunity to interview Kilmer as a sage old poet years after literary success brought him fame, as many doctorate seekers were able to do with Carl Sandburg or Robert Frost. No biographer could go to Joyce Kilmer on the tenth anniversary of his publication of "Trees" and ask him what tree, if any, he had in mind when he wrote his most famous poem. But they could have taken the best available primary sources and personal reflections others had of this man, and blended them into a synergistic story of his life. “What manner of man was Joyce Kilmer?” is the most essential question to answer in any biography. Some of the most intimate reflections of this came in 1937, almost twenty years after his death, when some of his closest living associates memorialized his life, his works, and his essence (really) at the dedication of the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Library at Campion Jesuit High School (formerly Campion College) in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
Joyce Kilmer put meaning into life by putting the honor of his convictions into words by speaking out against decadence in the arts and literature and into action by giving his life in battle against brutal atrocity. He did it too in poetry by taking, for instance, something as mundane as a commuter train and turning it into a blessed vehicle of public transportation that answers one demand: "A father – a son – some human thing that this, the midnight train, may bring."[7] He was a "poet, warrior, patriot, lecturer, essayist, critic, editor, anthologist, preface writer, interviewer of famous men, boon companion, newspaper man, and just about everything else a man could be,"[8] according to one tribute. He was also a humorist, historian, playwright – even, fisherman and ditch-digger – but most importantly, a son, husband, and father...and a Catholic. But it was as a poet that Kilmer will mostly be remembered, and hopefully in the sense that Kilmer himself thought of poetry:
A poet is one who is pursued by a love of beauty and because of that love he creates beautiful things. Kilmer wrote,
Joyce Kilmer was in love with many things, with trees, and stars and gorgeous sunsets and sapphire seas; he was in love with little things, the ordinary things that seem so hum-drum to the rest of us who are not poets. And out of that love he created, with the witchery of words, poems about bookshops, and railroad trains, and suburban houses, and alarm clocks, and humanity-filled main streets, and delightful delicatessens – all transformed by the magic of his imagination into things of glory. He heralded what was good in poetry. As commentator/critic Christopher Morley wrote when the news of Kilmer's death reached the desks of literary editors:
Kilmer saw poetry with the impassioned character of a virtuous man. Just as he considered suicide cowardice in "To a Young Poet Who Killed Himself,"[12] so he had no use for affectation or effeminacy in verse. In "To Certain Poets," he regretted that, because they turned out delicately vile excuses for poetry, "Now is the rhymer's honest trade a thing for scornful laughter made." Such a common opinion of poetry was brought on by "little poets...tiny voices...exuding slime." So he scolded them saying, "Take up your needles, drop your pen, and leave the poet's craft to men."[13]
The above words were written in 1919 by Rev. James J. Daly, S.J. Father Daly could, without fear of contradiction, say “I know this to be true,” for Father Daly was not only Joyce’s close personal friend, albeit via long-distance, he was also Kilmer’s “long-suffering confessor.” It was to him that Kilmer confided: “I feel much comforted and strengthened by many prayers – those of my wife and little children, those of many dear friends, mostly priests and Sisters. I value highly my share in your Masses. Always pray hard, my dear Father, for your affectionate friend, Joyce.”[15] Thomas Walsh, Kilmer's friend and co-contributor to many literary journals, a fellow poet and respected Hispanist, echoed the resounding accolade on his manliness:
Though his closest friends would, by their honest praise, raise this poet-patriot-soldier to heroic heights, Kilmer would (especially in the face of war) reduce himself and us to life’s proper equation: fear of God. From France, Kilmer wrote the following:
Such a man was Joyce Kilmer that he was modest almost in direct proportion to his fame. Closing a letter to Father Daly he took a humbling jab at himself saying: "Pray sometimes for a good-for-nothing hack who wastes his health, time and opportunities and probably would waste his money, if he had any."[18] His friend Richardson Wright wrote after Kilmer’s death that the more renowned a poet he became, the less he acted like one.[19] Joyce considered it mawkish to prostitute one’s talent; an example of which would be to claim some almighty authority on the basis of “popularity” – a quality that Kilmer knew was but fleeting. Popularity, as Kilmer realized, was a double-edged sword that cut both ways. It was not always the loudest or most popular voice that should be the standard for virtue – in fact, quite often the opposite was true, whether it be in literature, academics, or politics:
Kilmer would shrug off compliments with a winning smile that acknowledged the giver with genuine gratitude, but he would just as graciously explain to the giver that he was only doing what the good Lord had given him talent to do. It was in “doing the right thing” that he found personal satisfaction. In two letters from France to two different people one day apart, Kilmer’s thoughts could be linked with an ellipsis: “To tell the truth, I am not at all interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful. And I see daily and nightly the expression of beauty in action instead of words, and I find it more satisfactory....”[21] “Not that what I write matters – I have discovered, since some unforgettable experiences [touched me], that writing is not the tremendously important thing I once considered it. You will find me less a bookman when you next see me, and more, I hope, a man.”[22] Kilmer knew, far more than his friends allowed, that he was really just a "work in progress," realizing well that he had flaws and recognizing that only loved ones might overlook them. Still, Holliday was unabashed in his praise of Kilmer:
Holliday's words, in the memoir that accompanies his Kilmer anthology, are brief. They take up a mere 100 pages with wide margins and narrow body text only twenty-six lines deep. They were written more as connected anecdotes on the life of a dear friend than as a definitive biography of a noteworthy person. They are, as the author admitted, "not a wreath, but a chronicle."[24] Holliday's memoir gives the Kilmer devotee a sketchy look at how Kilmer lived as he wrote his poetry and prose, but it does not offer a determined study that will satisfy the consummate Kilmer aficionado's hope for full biography of this forgotten poet laureate. For Joyce Kilmer, his writing was linked with his actions, and his actions were the manifestation of his integrity. He would no sooner compromise his writing than he would forge a check. Kilmer’s works and actions illustrated American heroism in the life of a “proud poet” who knew intrinsically that justice was a cause worth dying for. He was an earthy writer who was always in touch with the subjects he was writing about, a common person who was uncommonly true to doing right by his loved ones, his trade, his faith, and his country. Kilmer was no saint – at least he would not have considered himself one. He was demanding and sometimes a bit overbearing. He once wrote that "no poet has any right in the world to knock the work of another poet who is honest,"[25] and he proceeded to back that up by calling Vachel Lindsey "a sincere artist." But that didn't prevent him from lampooning William Griffith's "City Views and Visions" as an "annoying book of verse ... so the reader becomes angry at such reckless waste of talent."[26] He thundered around the house so that his wife Aline remembered that the "roar of the world" he cited in "Thanksgiving" was his roar in her ears.[27] When transferred to the Intelligence Section of the Fighting 69th, he nearly threw his rank around to his own demise, as noted by Emmett Watson:
Kilmer could be exasperating even to the person he loved most, as partially illustrated in these words to his wife Aline:
"He was the kind of person," according to Henry Watts, his secretary, "who never so much as contemplated that any request of his would be refused."[30] He must have been quite irritating at times, but also so warm-hearted that the people around him didn't give any abrasiveness a second thought:
Critics have shown only limited literary approval of Kilmer’s work and are reluctant to concede that his works en toto show splendid, remarkable literary quality. They often, as many have, recognize him for one shining literary moment, "Trees," and, at that, reduce his stature because of the poem's commonness. The simplicity of that poem has made it the object of limerickesque satire. For golfers, Ogden Nash has changed the contrast from "a poem as lovely as a tree" to a hazard as troublesome as a tree. He also parodied the poem in his two couplets:
Hollywood has no less used its influence to satirize "Trees" by making it the mocking little ditty that brings Superman out of a kryptonite-deadened trance; and the firing squad in "The In-laws" subjected its intended victims to further torture by singing "Trees" before their intended demise. But parody is sometimes an ultimate form of flattery, and it is in this vein that Walter Irving Clarke, a contemporary of Kilmer, offered a laudatory variation of "Trees" with these opening and closing verses in memoriam to Joyce Kilmer:
In truth, Kilmer was a versatile writer and laureate-level poet whose literary worth lies in greater totality than "Trees." But since "Trees" has become his legacy, it is easy for some critics to reduce all his work to that poem's unadorned simplicity. Versatile and edifying examples of Kilmer’s poetry are available in three of his own antiquarian books: Summer of Love, Trees and Other Poems, and Main Street and Other Poems, besides the Holliday anthology. Kilmer’s efforts as an anthologist are presented in Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets and its revised version, Joyce Kilmer’s Anthology of Catholic Poets. There are also essays and various “fugitive pieces” (as Holliday calls them) that typify some of Kilmer’s interpretive prose in The Circus and Other Essays, Literature in the Making by Some of Its Makers, and the Historical Appendix to Father Duffy’s Story, the chronicle of the war efforts of the “Fighting Sixty-Ninth.” Scores of essays, interviews, and poems (some by-lined, some not) are not reprinted in books but are available to the researcher who cares to take a day-by-day tour of the New York Times microfilm archives from January 1910 to the poet-soldier’s embarkation for France. Kilmer lived his life with such zest that he never lost his sense of humor or his deep abiding love for his family or his overwhelming faith in God. That he did it with such awesome talent that his poetry will live from generation to generation, that he did it with such matter-of-factness that his heroism in battle was simply an unpretentious death of an American soldier in World War I – this is the matter of which legends are made. Holliday's short memoir is the best archived biography, but cursory in many respects. Three books by Kilmer's mother, Annie Kilburn Kilmer, Whimsies, More Whimsies, and Memories of My Son, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer, are delicately introspective, as is her Leaves of My Life. The first two are, as the titles suggest, whimsical. They are personal travelogues (of a sort) where Mrs. Kilmer remembers her son in the places where they traveled more than in things Joyce did. Memories of My Son is a collection of letters written by Joyce to his mother, with revealing commentary by her on some of the poems written for and dedicated to her. The commentary might be vulnerable to a charge of bias, for "a mother's love" is magnified when it comes to Annie's relationship with Joyce. Memories of My Son also comes as close as one will come to finding any biographical notes about Joyce's childhood. A similarly introspective, relationship-bearing edition by his son, Kenton – entitled rather predictably, Memories of My Father, Joyce Kilmer – is a photo-rich collection of letters written by the poet to his mother (the same letters that were published in her Memories of My Son) along with 37 of Joyce Kilmer's poems and 20 poems by his wife Aline, a noteworthy poet in her own right. Kenton's Memories book sheds much new light on Joyce Kilmer's life as a husband and father. It deals with such humdrum enterprises as ditch-digging, kite-flying, and spelling, and it shows a Joyce Kilmer away from his professional life, involved in baby feedings and table manners. It relies much on Kenton's remembered reflections of his father instilled in him by his mother – and understandably so, since Kenton was only eight years old when his father sailed for France. A great attribute of Kenton's book is that it is richly laden with notes identifying almost all of the people mentioned in Joyce's letters. It contains an index that is invaluable in placing these people in the context of the poet's life. There are, as some previous quotations indicate, some insightful reflections on Kilmer from those who knew him personally and well, spoken with studious precision and heartfelt admiration at the dedication of a library bearing his name at Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. This was a Jesuit college in Kilmer's time and a favorite location for his lectures and his own spiritual renewal. Unfortunately, countless reflections, stories, and private thoughts about Joyce from the one who knew him most intimately, his wife and soul-mate, are assigned to the togetherness they now share. Aline was as refined and private as she was strikingly beautiful. During their married life, she kept their home life a treasured retreat filled with familial reserve shared only with closest relatives and friends. After Joyce's death, her inspiration was her spirituality and their children, neither of which she cared to share with the public. In the case of her children, she wrote numerous poems inspired by them, and she created a fictional, single-parented group named "Emmy, Nicky, and Greg," loosely based on some of their experiences together. These writings kept them close to her heart but "public" only in the sense of much undersold publications. In the case of her spirituality and private bereavement over the loss of Joyce, her bittersweet, solitary resignation can be seen in the example of one poem from her book, Vigils:
Aline was a talented poet in her own right. But, except for the references to Joyce in her poetry, she kept private the relationship she had with her friend and lover, her devoted husband, the father of her children (one of whom they buried in grief), and her kindest critic, who shared her early poetic successes and inspired her others more than he would ever know. These are the kinds of relationships that can only be fully exposed by a bedfellow biographer. Aline could never and would never be that. In her privacy, in fact, she asked her son Kenton to destroy all of the most intimate letters from Joyce to her and all of her letters to him. Just a few of the former have been saved by their daughter Deborah (Sister Michael Kilmer, O.S.B.). They can be found in a private collection at the library of the College of St. Benedict in St. Cloud, Minnesota. About the private life of Joyce Kilmer, the potential wealth of information flowing from the fountain of knowledge that was Aline was turned off at the spigot. The only invasion into this privacy are but a few episodes of home life revealed by Kenton's recollections of conversations with his mother. Letters (by far the most telling resource of Kilmer's life) do not deal a lot with home life but with characters and career (in the case of letters to his mother), solace and soldiering (in the case of letters to his wife), and only a few with literature and literary criticism (in the case of letters to Father Daly). Still, taking these letters in the aggregate, chronologizing them as much as possible, rescuing from them the amazing personality of Joyce Kilmer, applying them to his personal and professional life, revealing the richness of the relationships exhibited in them, and intertwining them with interviews and prose works of Kilmer as well as his poetry, reveal an exceptional writer and a wonderful person. Because these letters are so replete with Joyce’s own unique wisdom, self-knowledge (as well as self-deprecation), perspective, biographical insights and personal experience, they fulfill Holliday's comment in his memoir: "many of his [Kilmer's] letters [are included], and those who have not known his letters have not known the man.”[35] There are hundreds of letters preserved in three libraries, one at Georgetown University, one at Rutgers University and one at Marquette University -- but many are most irritatingly undated. Most of them, except while he was in France, are to his mother, and indeed it can be said that, from time immemorial, there are simply many things a married son doesn't tell his mother. Joyce was no different. Joyce was a respectful son who really did have a special bond with his mother and yet he was a devoted husband who, from all appearances, never lost the pre-nuptial passion that gave to Aline his private devotion. “I have no life except in loving you,” he wrote to her on the eve of their marriage. “Soul, mind and body I yield to your service.”[36] Knowing that Aline held the preeminent place in his heart and tempering that with the respect he had for his mother, one can find as much or more between the lines written to his mother than in the lines themselves. Certain reflective biographical notes add to the genuineness of a subject – for example, the fact that Joyce Kilmer was struck by a commuter train on July 26, 1916 – tells much about Kilmer's spirituality and his determination. Kilmer’s later reflection on the event exhibits this when he wrote to his confidante Father James Daly. “It may interest you to know,” he wrote, “that I had received the Blessed Sacrament half an hour before the train struck me, and that to this fact I attribute my escape from death – since at the place where I was struck several men have been killed, being thrown forward and under the wheels, instead of (as I was), to one side.”[37] Holliday writes of the accident in this way:
Kilmer found a zest for life that most people can only hope for. It wasn't so much that a more zestful life was afforded him; it was that in all the little things in life as well as the big ones, he celebrated life. According to Christopher Morley, a contemporary and critic:
Take, for instance, the seemingly mundane task of defining words for a dictionary:
Kilmer, in a similar fashion, felt there was more interesting literary adventuring in an insightful book written "with personality" than one with strictly scholarly approaches. In his review of a John Milton biography, Kilmer admired it because it promised "more flavours and exciting things than one written by a college professor."[41] When Kilmer further describes "his" Milton, he talks about inscriptions and drawings that many might think would detract from its "efficiency." For Kilmer, it just made it more real. This is the same kind of real-life approach Kilmer uses when he wrote to his mother these affectionate words about his wife's first experiments in cooking: "Aline is making raspberry jam. Pray for it, for it is in tribulation. It is being made on a wood fire, which occasionally blazes up, and occasionally goes out. We picked the berries this morning. She is going to put up some blackberries and some huckleberries, and has expressed insane desires to make mixtures after your manner. I curb her with difficulty and an ax."[42] Just as Kilmer appreciated a Milton biography written to include "more flavours ", so Holliday, for instance, when referring to the train incident described earlier, put himself into the person of Kilmer as best he could, knowing with some intimacy how Kilmer probably reacted. Thus Holliday writes:
By saying "I have an idea that...he entered into the experience with much relish," Holliday took the liberty of "getting into the persona" of Joyce Kilmer. In much the same manner, Kilmer's son, Kenton, reflects, "Dad became a socialist, I am sure, because he thought socialism embodied his enthusiasm for down-trodden and unfortunate individuals – but he abandoned socialism, I am also sure, because he perceived that its concern was a cold and philosophical interest in the welfare of the masses, and tended to ignore individuals, families, and emotional relationships."[44] Joyce Kilmer was not just a lover of life but one who felt that everyone should love life. He prayed for beggars, defended gypsies, respected common folk, and empathized with apartment dwellers. "His scorn was reserved for those who scorned others, whether for cultural or financial or racial differences."[45] He was a democrat in the large sense of the small-lettered word. As his good friend Thomas Walsh said:
Kilmer entered into everything with much relish and concern. It was his nature to do everything full tilt. "There were no half measures with him. He lived a life that was full of activity, and he loved it."[47] According to Richard LeGallienne, who was a friend but also a notable literary critic of the time who could "drop" literary names without fear of contradiction, Kilmer could be compared to contemporary Victorians:
Kilmer's poetry might be the result of thought process he puts into the following poem.
. . . except that Joyce Kilmer died before he could become an old poet. References
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