Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger 1888-1916, American poet, b. New York City, grad. Harvard, 1910. During World War I he served in the French Foreign Legion and was killed in battle in 1916. He is famous for his war poem, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death."

Bibliography: See his Collected Poems (1916) and his letters and diary (1917).

Seeger, Alan (1888–1916) soldier and poet. Seeger was born in New York City but passed much of his youth in Mexico, where his father had a business. Seeger began writing while in Mexico and continued upon his return to New York to attend school. He later attended Harvard. In 1912 he moved to Europe and began writing poetry in earnest. He joined the Foreign Legion of France and became a war correspondent for the New Republic and the New York Sun, while continuing to write poetry. In 1916, while hospitalized with bronchitis, he wrote his most famous poem, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” capturing the futility of war. He was killed in the Battle of the Somme. France awarded him the Croix de Guerre in 1916 and the Medaille Militaire in 1924.

Seeger, Alan (1888–1916),New York‐born poet, graduated from Harvard (1910), went to Paris (1913), and at the beginning of World War I enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He was killed at Belloy‐en‐Santerre, in the Battle of the Somme. “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” (North American Review, Oct. 1916) is the most famous of his war poems, which were collected in Poems (1916). His Letters and Diary was published in 1917.