Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Joyce Kilmer and Trees

SUGGESTED HOST INTRO: Joyce Kilmer was born in 1886. He lived most of his short life in New Jersey. He's best known for his poem Trees. Independent Producer Sarah Elzas [EL-zis] has this profile:

OUTRO: This piece was produced by Sarah Elzas

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NARRATIOR: TREES IS READ AT ARBOR DAY CELEBRATIONS; IT?S TAUGHT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS; AND IT?S BEEN SET TO MUSIC SEVERAL TIMES.

- MUSIC (PAUL ROBESON): I think that I shall never see

HADAS: I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree

NARRATOR: RACHEL HADAS IS A POET AND A PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT RUTGERS IN NEW JERSEY

HADAS: my take on this poem is it?s rather slight. It is free of irony and self consciousness, except that little reference to fools like me at the end, which I find kind of charming.

KILMER: Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree.

My name is Hugh Kilmer. I?m the- oldest grandson of- Joyce Kilmer? I do like it. I like others better.

HADDAS: In a sene this is a very romantic poem. The tree is personified and full of emotion. So, just because- the year 1900 had come and gone, it?s wrong to think that romanticism had died.

NARRATOR: JOYCE KILMER?S CONTEMPORARIES WERE FLEEING ROMANTICISM AS FAST AS THEY COULD. MODERNIST POETS OF THE EARLY 1900s WANTED TO PARE DOWN FLOWERY VICTORIAN WRITING--AND MAKE POETRY CLEAR AND CONCISE. EZRA POUND WAS ONE OF THEM:

HADAS: A very famous one that Pound wrote is two lines: On a station in the metro--that?s the title--the apparition of these faces in the crowd, petals on a wet black bough

NARRATOR: JOYCE KILMER WAS DECIDEDLY NOT A MODERNIST. HE COULDN?T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. SO ONE DAY, HE SAT DOWN WITH HIS WIFE, ALEEN, AND THEIR FRIEND MARGARET WIDDEMER--AND THEY STARTED WRITING SOME--AS A JOKE:

VINCEGUERA: ?Eyes like little green apples in an apple blossom face?. The ending was ?and the water rats are tired.?

NARRATOR: THEN THEY CREATED A POET TO GO WITH THE POETRY?ALFRED WATTS. DESPITE BEING A JOKE, ?ALFRED WATTS? MANAGED TO GET POEMS PUBLISHED IN THE PRESTIGIOUS POETRY MAGAZINE!

VINCIGUERA: Much to Kilmer?s and Margaret?s and uh, Aline?s consternation, he began developing a fan base?

NARRATOR: THOMAS VINCIGUERA FOUNDED THE JOYCE KILMER MEMORIAL BAD POETRY CONTEST, HELD ANNUALLY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

VINCIGUERA: Editors and other poets wanted to meet him. For a while they were able to uh, keep up the subterfuge by saying that? he didn?t wash a lot? hoping that would keep visitors at bay.

NARRATOR: THEY COULDN?T KEEP ALFRED WATT?S IDENTITY A SECRET FOREVER. AND THEY ALSO COULDN?T SEEM TO WRITE ANYTHING BUT MODERNIST POETRY WHILE HE EXISTED. SO THEY HAD TO KILL HIM. HE WAS FOUND ?STARVED TO DEATH? BY A ?FRIEND?. AND KILMER WAS ABLE TO GET BACK TO WRITING HIS OWN MORE TRADITIONAL, RELIGIOUS-INSPIRED POETRY.

KILMER: "I went not forth to battle, / I carried friendly men, / The children played about my decks, / The women sang -- and then -- / And then / And then / The world turned scarlet, and heaven hid her face / The world that God created / Became a shameful place!

NARRATOR: KILMER WROTE ?WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED? ABOUT THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA, A PASSENGER SHIP THAT WAS TORPEDOED BY A U-BOAT OFF THE COAST OF IRELAND IN 1915.

KILMER: It was published on the front page of the NY Times? And it was one of the things that, uh got Wilson to- to declare the war, to say that we ought to get into it.

NARRATOR: JOYCE KILMER ENLISTED IN THE ARMY IN 1917, AND WAS KILLED THE NEXT YEAR IN THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE. HE IS RECOGNIZED BY SOME AS A WAR POET. THOUGH HE IS REMEMBERED MAINLY FOR TREES:

VINCIGUERA: It has been translated into something like a dozen languages? And it has been sung by many people including Alfalfa of the Little Rascals.

- LITTLE RASCALS ARBOR DAY EPISODE

VINCIGUERA: There are 13 service areas on the NJ turnpike, and the Joyce Kilmer service area is one of them.

HADAS: The best memorial for poets is in Robert Frosts? words, to lodge some poems where they?re hard to get rid of. It?s like a splinter under your fingernail. It?s not utterly comfortable, but it?s there? if that?s what a good poet does, Kilmer has lodged that poem. He hit the jackpot.

- LITTLE RASCALS CLIP? Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree

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