About this item
Highlights
- "These poems achieve the beautiful, uncanny fusing that Miller defines as poetry itself.
- About the Author: Wayne Miller's books of poetry include Only the Senses Sleep, The Book of Props, The City, Our City, Post-, and We the Jury.
- 120 Pages
- Poetry, Subjects & Themes
Description
About the Book
"A tender and provocative collection of poems interrogating the troubles and wonders of both childhood and parenthood against the backdrop of global violence"--Book Synopsis
"These poems achieve the beautiful, uncanny fusing that Miller defines as poetry itself."--Rick Barot, author of Moving the Bones
A tender and provocative collection of poems interrogating the troubles and wonders of both childhood and parenthood against the backdrop of global violence.
From accomplished poet Wayne Miller comes a collection examining how an individual's story both hews to and defies larger socio-political narratives and the sweep of history. A cubist making World War I camouflage, a forlorn panel on the ethics of violence in literature, an obsessive litany of "late capitalist" activities, a military drone pilot driving home after work--here, the awkward, the sweet, and the disturbing often merge. And underlying it all is Miller's own domestic life with two children, who highlight the hopeful and ingenious aspects of childhood, which is "not // as I had thought / the thicket of light back at the entrance // but the wind still blowing / invisibly toward me / through it."
The End of Childhood, Miller's sixth collection of poems, is his most intimate, juxtaposing his own fraught youth with that of his children amid insurrection and pandemic, vacation and vocation, art and war. This piercing book spares nothing as it searches for a measure of personal benevolence and truth in today's turbulent, brutalizing world--which it confronts through a singularly candid and lyrical voice.
Review Quotes
Praise for The End of Childhood
"A compelling addition to a certain generational approach to fatherhood as poetic subject."--Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Poetry
"Wayne Miller's sixth book of poems is his most moving and most spooky. Permeated by the damages of history, the brutalities of modernity, and the turmoil of consciousness, Miller's poems are haunted into a gray lyric radiance. Often situated in wintry aftermaths, the poems have the lapidary quality of last-ditch communications. Still, despite its starting point in what's dire, Miller's work longs for the 'shared breath' of meaning, even if the only possible meaning is fragmented and oblique. These poems achieve the beautiful, uncanny fusing that Miller defines as poetry itself: 'One mouth moving / another.'"--Rick Barot, author of Moving the Bones
"Wayne Miller possesses the range and wisdom of the timeless artist. Like Berryman, he personalizes the genre of cultural critique; like Auden, he historicizes the genre of autobiography. From this book's opening pages we encounter the ripeness of the poet's mind and the extent of his delight and disappointment in the world. I am in awe of this collection of poems, from its deft use of syntax to its dexterous lines and stanzas, from its command of both the short and long form to its expert narratives and fully landed endings: these reasons and more make Miller, to my mind, a true poet's poet, a poet to learn from, emulate, and trust."--Kathy Fagan, author of Bad Hobby
Past Praise for Wayne Miller
"One of the most outstanding American poets of his generation."--The Irish Independent
"A singular figure in American poetry."--Colorado Review
"Miller makes a vast impact using the smallest stroke--he is careful and suspenseful, wary of flamboyance."--The New Yorker
"Negotiates a contemporary world . . . in terms both intimate and cultural, bereaved and entranced, clear-eyed and restless . . ."--Citation for the UNT Rilke Prize
"Among the best poets in the USA."--Notre Dame Review
"Miller's poems are beacons."--Booklist
About the Author
Wayne Miller's books of poetry include Only the Senses Sleep, The Book of Props, The City, Our City, Post-, and We the Jury. His awards include a William Carlos Williams Award, two Colorado Book Awards, an NEA Translation Fellowship, six individual awards from the Poetry Society of America, and a Fulbright Distinguished Scholarship to Northern Ireland. He has co-translated two books from Albanian--most recently Moikom Zeqo's Zodiac, shortlisted for the PEN Center USA Award in Translation--and has co-edited three books, most recently Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century. He lives in Denver, where he co-directs the Unsung Masters Series, teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, and edits Copper Nickel.