Miller Williams was author, editor, or translator of twenty-eight books, including twelve volumes of poetry. He was widely recognized with national and international awards and with two honorary degrees and was inaugural poet for the second inauguration of President Clinton. Recent books of poetry include Living on the Surface: New and Selected Poems (LSU Press), Adjusting to the Light (University of Missouri Press), and Points of Departure and The Ways We Touch (both from University of Illinois Press).
Poetry
Winter 2008
He Gets around to Answering the Old Question
He doesn’t see as well as he thinks he remembers. His fingers sometimes find it hard to bend. He often can’t find the name to go with a face. Sometimes […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
Waking from a Dream
There was a nothingness, an impulse, a quark flittering around existence in a place of purest emptiness, no light, no dark, a flicker of mathematics in manifold space, less a […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
The Geography of Time
We think of time past as the old country where grandparents and parents came from. We try to accord it, therefore, a kind of honor. We set days aside in […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
Wide Place in the Road
At last when he had to go back to be at one of those funerals he had to attend, he knew how it would be, hugging his aunts and asking […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
10,000-Year-Old Tree Discovered Shades Two and a Half Acres
This tree took root before Jerusalem, before Troy, before Constantinople, before there were cities to name, before there were farms. Imagine: the most ancient living thing on earth which […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
Listen
I threw a snowball across the backyard. My dog ran after it to bring it back. It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow. She stood confused, seeing and […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
On Word That the Old Children’s Stories Have Been Brought Up-to-Date
The farmer's wife missed the tails entirely. Jack and the giant became the best of friends. The boy cried wolf again and the people came but didn't hurt the wolf, […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
If Ever There Was One
She could tell he loved her. He wanted her there sitting in the front pew when he preached. He liked to watch her putting up her hair and ate whatever […]
Poetry
Spring 1995
Holiday Inn: Surrounded by Someone Else’s Reunion, He Comes to Terms
for George Haley and the others The large marquee said Welcome Family Winston. One N was upside down. Nobody cared. From nearly black to almond, stroller to cane, with […]
Poetry
Winter 1992
Closing the House
That’s never going to sit inside the box. They took the picture to help them do her hair. I guess we just throw out the underwear but what are we […]
Poetry
Winter 1992
A Day in the Death
He is amazed how hard it is to die. He lies in his hospital bed, his shallow breaths audible in the hall. He wonders why—and tries to laugh because he […]
Poetry
Winter 1992
Learning Russian
First the elaborate letters, then their sounds, the fat, embarrassed tongue feeling its way, and then the words, heavy with consonants, tied uselessly together for something to say to him […]
Poetry
Winter 1992
I Can Only Stay for Fifteen Minutes
“Oh,” the doctor mumbled, “she’s doing as well as anyone could expect.” He’s said it before. Still you lie here shrinking, cell by cell, as if you don’t understand what […]
Poetry
Autumn 1985
One Day a Woman
One day a woman picking peaches in Georgia lost her hold on the earth and began to rise. She grabbed limbs but leaves stripped off in her hands. Some children […]
Poetry
Autumn 1985
Stopping to Look at a Crèche in a Jewelry Store Window He Comes across a Question of Curious Import
Burros, taken to Death Valley by prospectors and lost in the desert, by eating the few grasses and other green things that grew there, caused the death of wild goats […]
Poetry
Autumn 1985
Mecanic on Duty at All Times
The license plate was another state and year. The man’s slow hands, as if they had no part in whatever happened here, followed the hollows and hills of his broad […]
Poetry
Autumn 1985
One of Those Rare Occurrences on a City Bus
For exactly sixty seconds riding to work approaching a traffic light going to green he understands everything. I mean from the outer curling edge of the universe to quarks, the […]
Poetry
Autumn 1985
A Summer Afternoon an Old Man Gives Some Thought to the Central Questions
Grass grows out of every sidewalk crack. Briars have taken the garden. The arteries of the old dog harden almost audibly. The basement door is broken and the mice are […]
Weekend Reads
Listen
From the Kenyon Review, New Series, Summer-Fall 1996, Vol. XVIII, No. 3/4 I threw a snowball across the backyard. My dog ran after it to bring it back. It broke […]
Weekend Reads
Closing the House
From the Kenyon Review, New Series, Winter 1992, Vol. XIV, No.1 That’s never going to sit inside the box. They took the picture to help them do her hair. I […]