“Joyce Kilmer was a man?” is a question asked often when people visit the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in mountainous Graham County, North Carolina. Since the unisex name, Joyce, is most often been bestowed on females, the question is understandable. However, once visitors to the natural historic site get beyond the gender confusion, they realize that there is a significant reason for naming the old-growth forest of primarily towering yellow poplar trees after Kilmer.
Many sites important to American history truly are “off the beaten path,” and this one, located 12 miles west of the nearest town—tiny Robbinsville—is no exception. One has to want to tackle the winding and remote, yet stunningly beautiful, route to seemingly nowhere in order to find Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, located in the Nantahala National Forest.
Short but Weighty
Kilmer’s classic 1913 poem focusing on the majestic and spiritual nature of trees. Simply titled, “Trees,” it’s only 80 words within 12 lines. Still, it became instantly famous and is one poem that teachers taught and students memorized nationwide for generations.I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.
Visitors can read the poem a few times on plaques along walking paths while viewing more than 100 species of trees in the 3,800-acre forest. Information about who Kilmer was and why he is memorialized in this way is offered in other signs.Joyce Kilmer
The New Jersey native, born in 1886, was a successful writer and poet. Six volumes of his poems and essays were published from 1911 to 1917. In 1913, the same year that he wrote “Trees,” he joined the staff of The New York Times as a writer.He continued to write poetry when he enlisted as a soldier in the U.S. Army in 1917, during World War I. However, his life ended at age 31 in 1918, when a German sniper killed him. From 1918 to 1921, three more books that included Kilmer’s works were published posthumously.
In the 1930s, when so much of the Appalachian Mountain region was being logged, the U.S. Forest Service deemed a segment of old growth forest worthy of protection. More than 13,000 acres were eventually acquired. The Veterans of Foreign Wars had already petitioned the U.S. Forest Service to set aside a 3,800-acre portion to memorialize the poet because he is also a war veteran. The Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest was dedicated in 1936.
The meandering, figure-eight walking path is two miles long through many virgin stands of yellow poplars, which grow so straight and tall that it’s difficult to see their tops. There are also virgin stands of sycamore, basswood, and oak in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, some estimated to be over 400 years old.
