[lit-ideas] Re: Lagniappe for Mr Miller
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:06:04 -0700
David Ritchie wrote:
Arthur Miller?
Any of these Millers?
Results *1* - *10* of about *54,900,000* for *mr miller*. (*0.30* seconds)
Not even warm. Joaquin Miller (1837-1913), 'the Poet of the Sierras,'
sometime Oregon resident
http://bluebook.state.or.us/notable/notmiller.htm
and author of 'Columbus,' a rousing screed that made for satisfactory
declaiming, in our freshman year of high school.
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: “Now must we pray, 5
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?”
“Why, say, ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
[Four more stanzas follow: http://www.bartleby.com/248/798.html]
-----------------
In 1868, Miller's first book of poetry "Specimens" was published by
William D. Carter in Portland. The first book and Miller's second,
"Joaquin et Al," were both ignored by American critics, even the "Bards
of San Francisco Bay" to whom Miller dedicated the second volume.
Chagrined, as well as discouraged, Miller went to England, the mother
country of the poets. But the English publishers of 1870 were
unimpressed and Miller was forced to print 100 copies of his "Pacific
Poems" at his own expense. Success was immediate and staggering. The
London literat[i] lionized the painstakingly crude frontiersman with the
delicate writing touch. Miller captured entire drawing rooms of British
intelligentsia, dazzling them with his velvet coat, hip boots and the
bear rug he threw on the floor to comfort him as he spouted his own
writings.
[http://www.joaquinmiller.org/About/miller.html]
Arthur Miller, indeed!
Robert Paul
The Lake Oswego Poetaster
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
