Reader Photos: Mahwah Business Community Meets Joyce Kilmer’s Homegrown Poetry

President and Founder of the Joyce Kilmer Society, Alex Michelini, submitted the above photos, and the following, to Patch.

The Mahwah Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon  Wednesday featured a video and photo presentation  by the Joyce Kilmer Society of Mahwah, and a look at  its plans  for upcoming lectures and events to  honor  the poet and patriot who wrote the immortal poem “Trees” in his Mahwah house 100 years ago.

“Mahwah possesses the distinction as the birthplace of Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees,”  Society founder Alex Michelini said.

Kilmer interacted with the people of Suffern, the Ramapo River area  and wrote about towns like Rutherford, Glen Rock, Hawthorne, Clifton   Ramsey and Mahwah in “The Twelve-Forty-Five,” a poem about train commuters returning  home from work in the early morning.

“I like to think of this region as ‘Kilmer Country’,” Michelini said.

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sharon Rounds introduced Michelini at its monthly luncheon  in the Ho- Ho- Kus Inn & Tavern, 1 E. Franklin Turnpike, Ho-Ho-Kus.

Before the address, the Chamber viewed a musical adaptation of “Trees,” sung by the late Metropolitan Opera star Robert Merrill.

The Society (joycekilmermahwah@aim.com)  recently located  in the Georgetown University library Joyce Kilmer’s original notebook in  which “Trees” was written and dated February 2, 1913, and a letter by his widow, Aline, saying the poem was written in their Mahwah house overlooking a wooded hill.

The Society is a not-for-profit educational organization dedicated to public enlightenment of Kilmer’s life in Mahwah and the encouragement of young poets here.

The Society will have  an informational booth on Mahwah Day in September, present a Joyce Kilmer lecture for the Mahwah Museum at the Ramapo Reformed Church in November, place its traveling road exhibit in various venues in  and around Mahwah, and is proposing a “Joyce Kilmer In the Park” music and poetry event.

 The Society currently issues a free monthly online newsletter and also is planning a brochure on the story of Joyce Kilmer in Mahwah.  It is a not-for-profit educational organization dedicated to public enlightenment of Kilmer’s life in Mahwah and the encouragement of young poets.