Miller Williams
Miller Williams
Stanley Miller Williamswas an American contemporary poet, as well as a translator and editor. He produced over 25 books and won several awards for his poetry. His accomplishments were chronicled in Arkansas Biography. He is perhaps best known for reading a poem at President Clinton's 1997 inauguration. One of his best-known poems is "The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth8 April 1930
CityHoxie, AR
CountryUnited States of America
A thing may fail as a poem because it tries to do what a poem cannot do: it tries to become a treatise on cosmic truth... We can best be exact about the cosmic things - God and truth, beauty, eternity and love - by not talking directly about them.
I put myself in a spiritual and physical place where I've learned from experience the synapses are likely to fire and the juices are likely to flow, and simply begin to write.
I respond to mood. I hear some phrase, or pick up a rhythm.
Too many poets write poems which are only difficult on the surface, difficult because the dramatic situation is easily misunderstood. It's not difficult to write poems that are misunderstood. A drunk, a three-year-old-they are easily misunderstood. What is difficult is being clear and mysterious at the same time. The dramatic situation needs to be as clear in a poem as it is in a piece of good journalism. The why is part of the mystery, but the who, what, where, and when should all be understood.
Ritual is important to us as human beings. It ties us to our traditions and our histories.