Editing Joyce Kilmer (section)

===Years of writing and faith: 1909–1917===
[[File:Kilmer Home Mahwah New Jersey.jpg|thumb|right|The Kilmer family lived in this home on Airmount Road in Mahwah, New Jersey. It was here that his poem "Trees" was written in February 1913.]]
In the autumn of 1908, Kilmer was employed teaching Latin at [[Morristown High School]] in [[Morristown, New Jersey]].<ref name="PoetryMagazineBio" /> At this time, he began to submit essays to ''Red Cross Notes'' (including his first published piece, an essay on the "Psychology of Advertising") and his early poems to literary periodicals. Kilmer also wrote book reviews for ''The Literary Digest'', ''[[Town & Country (magazine)|Town & Country]]'', ''[[The Nation]]'', and ''[[The New York Times]]''. By June 1909, Kilmer had abandoned any aspirations to continue teaching and relocated to New York City, where he focused solely on developing a career as a writer.<ref name="Hillis" />{{rp|p.13}}

From 1909 to 1912, Kilmer was employed by [[Funk and Wagnalls]], which was preparing an edition of ''The Standard Dictionary'' that would be published in 1912.<ref name="PoetryMagazineBio" /> According to Hillis, Kilmer's job "was to define ordinary words assigned to him at five cents for each word defined. This was a job at which one would ordinarily earn ten to twelve dollars a week, but Kilmer attacked the task with such vigor and speed that it was soon thought wisest to put him on a regular salary."<ref name="Hillis" />{{rp|p.14}}

In 1911, Kilmer's first book of verse was published, entitled ''Summer of Love.'' Kilmer later wrote, "some of the poems in it, those inspired by genuine love, are not things of which to be ashamed, and you, understanding, would not be offended by the others."<ref name="Hillis" />{{rp|p.18}}

In 1912, Kilmer became a special writer for the ''[[New York Times Book Review|New York Times Review of Books]]'' and the ''[[New York Times Sunday Magazine]]'' and was often engaged in lecturing.<ref name="PoetryMagazineBio" /> He moved to [[Mahwah, New Jersey]], where he resided until his service and death in [[World War I]]. By this time he had become established as a published poet and as a popular lecturer. According to Robert Holliday, Kilmer "frequently neglected to make any preparation for his speeches, not even choosing a subject until the beginning of the dinner which was to culminate in a specimen of his oratory. His constant research for the dictionary, and, later on, for his New York Times articles, must have given him a store of knowledge at his fingertips to be produced at a moment's notice for these emergencies."<ref name="Hillis" />{{rp|p.21}}<ref name=holliday>Holliday, Robert Cortes (ed.). "Memoir" in ''Joyce Kilmer: Poems, Essays and Letters.'' 2 volumes. (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1918), 1:24.</ref>

When the Kilmers' daughter Rose (1912–1917) was stricken with [[poliomyelitis]] (also known as infantile paralysis) shortly after birth,<ref name="PoetryMagazineBio" /> they turned to their religious faith for comfort. A series of correspondence between Kilmer and Fr. James J. Daly led the Kilmers to convert to Catholicism, and they were [[Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults|received in the church]] in 1913. In one of these letters, Kilmer writes that he "believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic view of ethics and aesthetics, for a long time," and he "wanted something not intellectual, some conviction not mental – in fact I wanted Faith." Kilmer would stop "every morning for months" on his way "to the office and prayed for faith," claiming that when "faith did come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralyzed daughter. Her lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny feet know beautiful paths. You understand this and it gives me a selfish pleasure to write it down."<ref>Letter from Joyce Kilmer to Father James J. Daly, January 9, 1914, in Holliday, Robert Cortes (ed.) and Kilmer, Joyce. ''Poems, Essays and Letters in Two Volumes''. (New York: George H. Doran, 1918 – ''published posthumously'').</ref><ref>Daly, James Jeremiah. "Some letters of Joyce Kilmer." in his ''A Cheerful Ascetic, and other essays''. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Bruce, 1931), 76–86.</ref>

With the publication of [[Trees (poem)|"Trees"]] in the magazine ''[[Poetry Magazine|Poetry]]'' in August 1913, Kilmer gained immense popularity as a poet across the United States. He had established himself as a successful lecturer—particularly one seeking to reach a Catholic audience. His close friend and editor Robert Holliday wrote that it "is not an unsupported assertion to say that he was in his time and place the laureate of the Catholic Church."<ref name="holliday" /> ''Trees and Other Poems'' (1914) was published the following year. This collection also introduced the popular poem "The House With Nobody In It". Over the next few years, Kilmer was prolific in his output, managing an intense schedule of lectures, publishing a large number of essays and literary criticism, and writing poetry. In 1915 he became poetry editor of ''Current Literature'' and contributing editor of ''Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature''. In 1916 and 1917, before the [[American entry into World War I]], Kilmer would publish four books: ''The Circus and Other Essays'' (1916), a series of interviews with literary personages entitled ''Literature in the Making'' (1917), ''Main Street and Other Poems'' (1917), and ''Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets'' (1917).<ref name="PoetryMagazineBio" /> In the aftermath of the 1916 [[Easter Rising]] in Ireland, Kilmer helped organize a large memorial service in New Yorks Central Park for those who died in that conflict.<ref>{{cite book |last=Macardle |first=Dorothy |author-link= |date=1965 |title=The Irish Republic |url= |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |page=191 |isbn=}}</ref>