Joyce Kilmer

Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled "Trees" (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his Catholic faith, Kilmer was also a journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. At the time of his deployment to Europe during World War I, Kilmer was considered the leading American Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation, whom critics often compared to British contemporaries G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953). He enlisted in the New York National Guard and was deployed to France with the 69th Infantry Regiment in 1917. He was killed by a sniper's bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31. He was married to Aline Murray, also an accomplished poet and author, with whom he had five children.

6 December 1886

Born on the same birth day (6 December): Andrew Cuomo • Anne Begg • Bill Hanzlik • Eliot Porter • Kevin Cash • Lynn Fontanne • Mike Smith (Dave Clark Five) • Nora Kirkpatrick • Patrick Bauchau • Pierre Graber • Sabrina Ionescu • Shekhar Kapur • Shreyas Iyer • Sylvia Townsend Warner • Tamira Paszek

Born in the same month (December 1886): Diego Rivera • Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman • Kid Ory • Malak Hifni Nasif • Manne Siegbahn • Nikolai Uglanov • Pieter Oud • Rex Stout • Rose Wilder Lane • Ty Cobb • Victor McLaglen • Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz • Zhu De