The Second Book of Modern Verse: A Selection from the Work of Contemporaneous American Poets
General
The Second Book of Modern Verse: A Selection from the Work of Contemporaneous American Poets
American poetry -- 20th century
Kemp, Harry. [1883-1960] (1)
Born in Youngstown, Ohio, Dec. 15, 1883, but came East in his childhood.
Mr. Kemp has had a most romantic and picturesque career.
He ran away from High School to go to sea, shipping first to Australia.
From there he went to China, and eventually returned to America
via California. Coming East again, he prepared for college
at Mt. Hermon school, N.J., and entered the University of Kansas,
where he remained until his graduation in his twenty-sixth year. Since then,
with the exception of a winter in London, he has lived in New York,
where he is associated with the Greenwich Village group of dramatic folk,
both playwrights and actors. Mr. Kemp has written many brief dramas
and produced them with his own company at a small theater in New York,
but it is in poetry that he has done his best work thus far.
He has the true lyric quality, as shown in his two volumes,
"Poems", and "The Passing God", 1919.
Kilmer, Aline (Mrs. Joyce Kilmer). [1888-1941] (3)
Born Norfolk, Va. Daughter of the poet Ada Foster Murray.
Educated in public schools and at the Vail-Deane School of Elizabeth, N.J.
Married in 1908 to Joyce Kilmer, who met death in France during the World War.
Mrs. Kilmer is the author of "Candles that Burn", 1919,
which contains some of the sincerest and most moving lyric poetry
that has come out of our present revival.
Kilmer, Joyce. [1886-1918] (4)
Born at New Brunswick, N.J., Dec. 6, 1886. Educated at Columbia University.
After a short period of teaching he became associated with
the Funk and Wagnalls Company, where he remained from 1909 to 1912
when he assumed the position of literary editor of `The Churchman'.
His next step was to associate himself with the staff of the `New York Times',
where he became a well-known feature writer, doing in particular
a series of interviews with literary people which were later incorporated
into a book. During this period he contributed poetry
to the leading magazines and published several collections,
of which the first, "A Summer of Love", was published in 1911 and was followed
by "Trees, and Other Poems", 1914, and "Main Street and Other Poems", 1917.
His work, human in mood, mellow in quality, full of tenderness and reverence
for the old sanctities, soon drew to itself a large audience,
an audience greatly enhanced by the poet's personal contacts.
His kindly and whimsical humor, his charm of personality,
his enthusiasm and sympathy, won for him a large group of friends
and radiated to the wider group who became his readers.
In 1908 he married Aline Murray, herself a poet, and several children
were born to them, celebrated in the poems of both parents.
Upon America's entry into the World War, Joyce Kilmer enlisted,
and after a short period of training was sent to France
with the 165th Infantry, formerly the "Fighting 69th",
a regiment of Irish blood and of the Catholic religion,
to which he had himself become an adherent. He was made a sergeant
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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