Poet Miller Williams Dead at 84 (1 Viewer)

number6horse

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The American poet Miller Williams has passed away. He wrote in plain language with little ornamentation and was an admirer of Charles Bukowski.

Here's the NYT obituary.

And here's an example of his work:


Going Deaf

No matter how she tilts her head to hear
she sees the irritation in their eyes.
She knows how they can read a small rejection,
a little judgment, in every What did you say?
So now she doesn’t say What? or Come again?
She lets the syllables settle, hoping they form
some sort of shape that she might recognize.
When they don’t, she smiles with everyone else,
and then whoever was talking turns to her
and says, “Break wooden coffee, don’t you know?”
She pulls all she can focus into the face
to know if she ought to nod or shake her head.
In that long space her brain talks to itself.
The person may turn away as an act of mercy,
leaving her there in a room full of understanding
with nothing to cover her, neither sound nor silence.

(c)1995 Miller Williams
 
Copied this from somewhere on this forum.

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"working at 75 jobs..., one stretch of five years in a Philadelphia bar..."
Well, I guess sometimes he felt the need to exaggerate a little bit, if only to get the attention he deserved.
 

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