When the United States entered World War I, Joyce Kilmer knew he belonged in the thick of the battle. He joined the famous "Fighting 69th," whose slogan was, "Don't join the Sixty-Ninth unless you want to be among the first to go to France." A friend said of him, "It would have been dumbfounding if . . . he had not acted as he did . . . With him . . . it was only one fight more, the best and, as it proved, the last."
But Joyce Kilmer was not known as a war hero so much as a poet. Such poems as "Dave Lily," "Delicatessen," and "Trees" are only a few of the many he left to the world when he died at the age of thirty-one on a battlefield in France.
The story of that brief life, the development from boy to man, from poet to soldier, is the story of an unusual human being. For Joyce Kilmer refused to conform to the idea of a poet in an ivory tower. His poetry always reflected his deep interest in the world and its people. He could write at any time or place, on almost any subject. He was a journalist, respected critic, member of literary societies, an extensive traveler and lecturer. And in all phases of his life, he fought for the things he believed in.
Pen and Bayonet tells the fascinating story of a man committed—to poetry, to country, to God.
—from the dust jacket
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