Overview

""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.

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9781571315663

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Reviews

"Praise for We the Jury ""These entries candidly showcase the complexity of human contradictions, and the many forms of grief, doubt, and joy on offer. Moving between specific moments in history and ripe lyrical musings, these poems embrace the unanswerable, offering a deep and satisfying look at selfhood.""--Publishers Weekly ""A sharply conceived and exquisitely written collection [. . .] It's especially striking to read these poems now, because they feel perfectly suited for our fractured times, but a collection this assured, this perfectly rendered, will remain fresh and equally resonant for future readers.""--Los Angeles Review ""Astute and timely [. . .] Many-minded and formally diverse, [We the Jury] guides its reader through a gauntlet of American moments, personal and political, past and present, en route to what amounts, for this reader, to a sort of reckoning with the American identity and, within that identity, a speaker finding their place.""--D.S. Waldman, Poetry International ""We the Jury is a good-hearted testament to not only the intricate treading of history but also to enduring love, and the radical strength required to thrive in a ravaged world [. . .] What Miller does with the expression and capacity of love is magnificent and indeed, memorable. The poems enlarge its concept, open it up in a way that is not a vague, distant thought to the reader, but rather, a real outward force, a gentle beckoning to every wild and quiet possibility.""--Southern Indiana Review ""Poetry can transform the imagination, and the kind of changes Miller offers are ones we might shy away from. But the book itself is brave, and it makes me feel brave enough to face even the griefs and losses I have yet to encounter.""--Meridian ""The poems are dramatic but understated, quiet in the way a bassoon can fill a room without alarming the audience; they are gifts of steady language--unpretentious, unambiguous--in a world swarming with hornet-tipped voices [. . .] The poems are quiet like an iris bulb. If a reader puts her ear close, she'll hear the ground rumbling.""--Colorado Review ""An introspective call-to-action like no other [. . .] We the Jury delivers the informal findings of our conflicted and always-evolving existence and exposes the heart.""--RHINO ""We the Jury is a book of dark and sometimes surreal love poems from the heart of a man to his wife, his children, his nation, and his past. 'Marveling at the age of things, ' Miller writes with an understanding of community and the knowledge that any one understanding must be questioned: 'we will come down upon us with the weight of our entire existence // even then not one of us // will truly understand what we have done.' It's the subtleties and vulnerabilities of these poems that move them from a good look at recent history to a leap of lyric exploration.""--Jericho Brown, author of The Tradition"

Praise for The End of Childhood “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 Praise for We the Jury “These entries candidly showcase the complexity of human contradictions, and the many forms of grief, doubt, and joy on offer. Moving between specific moments in history and ripe lyrical musings, these poems embrace the unanswerable, offering a deep and satisfying look at selfhood.”—Publishers Weekly “A sharply conceived and exquisitely written collection [. . .] It’s especially striking to read these poems now, because they feel perfectly suited for our fractured times, but a collection this assured, this perfectly rendered, will remain fresh and equally resonant for future readers.”—Los Angeles Review “We the Jury is a book of dark and sometimes surreal love poems from the heart of a man to his wife, his children, his nation, and his past. ‘Marveling at the age of things,’ Miller writes with an understanding of community and the knowledge that any one understanding must be questioned: ‘we will come down upon us with the weight of our entire existence // even then not one of us // will truly understand what we have done.’ It’s the subtleties and vulnerabilities of these poems that move them from a good look at recent history to a leap of lyric exploration.”—Jericho Brown, author of The Tradition

Author Information

Wayne Miller's books of poetry includeOnly the Senses Sleep, The Book of Props, The City, Our City, Post-, andWe 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'sZodiac, 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 editsCopper Nickel.

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