Joyce Kilmer

Joyce Kilmer published "Trees" in Poetry magazine in 1913 — "I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree" — and it promptly became one of the most memorized poems in America, set to music, recited at Arbor Day ceremonies, and affectionately parodied ever since.

A journalist and critic in New York, Kilmer enlisted when America entered the First World War, turned down an officer's commission to stay with his regiment, and was killed by a sniper at the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918. He was 31. A memorial forest of old-growth trees in North Carolina now bears his name — a fitting monument for the poet of "Trees."