Joyce Kilmer is known best as the author of a wildly popular poem – frequently mocked by the literati – called “Trees”, which contains the famous lines: “I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree”. Yet this poet, journalist and soldier was once considered the “Catholic laureate” of America. And since this year marks the centenary of Kilmer’s untimely death, age 31 at the hands of a German sniper during the closing months of World War I, it seems an ideal time to remind Catholics on both sides of the Atlantic of Kilmer’s remarkable witness to hope in a troubled age.
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Joyce Kilmer: the ‘Apostle to Bohemia’ who died in battle
On the centenary of his death, Joyce Kilmer speaks to our own turmoil
Amy Fahey
4 min read
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