Alfred Joyce Kilmer (December 6, 1886-July 30, 1918) was an American poet and journalist, whose famous poem, Trees, was first published in the Poetry magazine, 1913. He was educated at Rutgers College and Columbia University, and worked for the New York Times. His works include: Summer of Love, 1911; The Circus and Other Essays, 1916; Main Street and Other Poems, 1917; and Literature in the Making, 1917. He was killed in World War I by a German machine-gun nest along the Ourcq River in France.
In 1913, in his most well-known poem, titled "Trees," Joyce Kilmer wrote:
<I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree...
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.> 1886JK001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1886JK001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Joyce Kilmer, 1913, in his poem "Trees." John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 795.