Joyce Kilmer's Granddaughter Has Lived A Life Grounded In The Arts

Noelie Kilmer Angevine has made it a point to teach her students poetry. Specially, her grandfather Joyce Kilmer’s poems.

Alex Michelini of the Joyce Kilmer Society of Mahwah spoke with the “Trees” author’s granddaughter recently. Kilmer lived in Mahwah for five years and wrote “Trees” there Feb. 2, 1913. The poem was written in an upstairs room of Kilmer home overlooking a wooded hill. The society also found the notebook in which the poem was written.

Kilmer was a reporter for The New York Times. He was killed in World War I in France when he was 31.

“My father, who lost his father when he was a little boy, still had memories of him that he enjoyed sharing with us.” — Noelie Kilmer Angevine

Angevine is one of 10 children of Kilmer’s eldest son, Kenton, who was also a poet. The family was raised in Virginia.

“My father, who lost his father when he was a little boy, still had memories of him that he enjoyed sharing with us,” Angevine said.

Angevine said learning was “exciting” and that the arts were always a big part in their lives.

“We acted out parts of Shakespeare players, recited Latin and French poetry, and sang songs in many different languages,” she said. “My brothers and sisters and I also made up our own plays and performed them for our parents.”

She received a Bachelor of Music from Marywood University and a master’s in musicology from Catholic University.

Angevine’s first love was to teach, her chosen vocation. She taught her students her grandfather’s poetry.

“I made it a point of teaching them my grandfather’s poems in a way that was thoughtful “ instead of singing them as songs, she said.

(Pictured: Left, Noelie Kilmer Angevine, granddaughter of “Trees” poet Joyce Kilmer and right, Alex Michelini, founder and president of the Joyce Kilmer Society of Mahwah.)