Biography Alan Seeger

Poet Biography

Seeger was born in New York to parents from old New England families. Seeger's family lived on Staten Island for ten years of his life before moving to Mexico in 1900. He lived in Mexico at an impressionable age and this had a decisive impact on his poetry. At age fourteen he returned to New York for education at the Hackley School in Tarrytown. He then went to Harvard College in 1906. He became one of the editors of Harvard Monthly and contributed verse regularly.

From 1910 to 1912 he lived aimlessly in New York before moving to Paris. He became very fond of Paris and, just after the outbreak of the World War One, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He served in the trenches on the western front and enjoyed the time on sentry duty for quiet contemplation. During the Battle of the Somme he was severely wounded when advancing on the German lines. He died shortly afterwards and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire.