Miller Williams
Died January 1, 2015.
Miller Williams is an American contemporary poet, as well as a translator and editor. He has authored over 25 books and won several awards for his poetry. His accomplishments have been chronicled in Arkansas Biography. He is perhaps best known for reading his poem "Of History and Hope" at the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Williams was educated in Arkansas, first enrolling at Hendrix College in Conway and eventually transferring to Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, where he published his first collection of poems, Et Cetera, while getting his bachelor's degree in biology. He went on to get a masters in zoology at the University of Arkansas in 1952.
He taught in several universities in various capacities, first as a professor of biology and then of English literature, and in 1970 returned to the University of Arkansas as a member of the English Department and the creative writing program. In 1980 he helped found the University of Arkansas Press, where he served as director for nearly 20 years. He is currently a professor emeritus of literature at the University of Arkansas.
Williams is the father of Lucinda Williams, a three-time Grammy Award winning country music, folk, and rock singer, named "America's best songwriter" by TIME magazine in 2002.
“Every word you add dilutes the sentence.”
“He lives all alone now, in the home they bought,and finally seems to be managing, more or less.Not the way he was, of course, with her,who lives alone now, too, at the same address.- Separatio in Loco”
“Wherever it left us, we were barely learning to live with itwhen here came Flannery O'Connor and Hank Williamsto tell us that no one has ever been lovedthe way everybody wants to be loved,and that's hard. That's hard.--last stanza of How Step by Step We Have Come to Understand”
“I manage a toast to the Christmas treeand one to the sweet absurdityin the miracle of the verb to be.Lucky you, lucky me.”
“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.”