Latest publications from David Miller

With Matrix I & II, David Miller constructs a web of memories, music, birds, colours, images and abstractions into a beautiful, meditative poetic sequence.

Keith Jebb writes that 'Miller’s poetry in Matrix is minimalist, but it is not austere; it is spare, but generous rather than dry. As with his prose poetry, there are buried quotations and allusions, a richness of layering. And there is the balance of repetition, compositions of colour replaced by their words, simple ink drawings.'

‘Miller’s impressionistic world of sight and sound, of memory and desire, is an unforgettable realisation of the movement of age’ - Ian Brinton, Tears in the Fence

Matrix I & II constitutes the first part of a trilogy - the other parts being circle square triangle (Spuyten Duyvil) and Afterword (Shearsman Books).

Norman Weinstein notes that 'circle square triangle, David Miller’s autobiography in poetry brings to mind the renewing spiritual force of geometric forms, their haunting presence musically and visually in this poet whose alchemical creativity is as realized in jazz improvisation and visual art as in poetry.'

Afterword can 'be seen as a poem sequence: of memories and meditations, dreams and (for want of a better word) visions. It’s increasingly invaded by images of destruction and desolation: of nature, of animals, of humankind; with those images prefigured by the opening passages... It’s a poem that’s concerned with limits and the possible surpassing or exceeding of limits.'

“David Miller writes: ‘any writing that engages with the spiritual has to be dialogic provisional &open-ended in nature otherwise we’re not talking about an engagement with the spiritual’ – and Miller’s new text does engage with the spiritual. Both learned and lyrical, it creates lyric utterance through a comprehension of the learning. David Miller both guides and follows – in the wisest European tradition. This is an overwhelming accomplishment.” —Tom Lowenstein

Miller has also written recently about the poet Cid Corman and the novelist Isadore Lhevinne. 

Among the Neighbors 25 is an expanded version of Miller's Cid Corman and ORIGIN: A Personal Account, which was originally published in Two Masters. Origin was an American poetry magazine that was founded in 1951 by Corman. The magazine provided an early platform for the work of  important, ground-breaking poets, who collectively created an alternative to academic poetry. Miller was, for a period, an Associate Editor with Origin.

Lhevinne wrote that 'My books are just like my life: I seem to possess the parlous gift of displeasing all groups of readers at all times.' In his Preface to Lhevinne's Ariade, Miller describes him as 'an enigmatic figure—a brilliant Jewish American modernist writer of the 1920s/30s', 'someone with such extraordinary talent' who has, nevertheless, 'slipped into totally undeserved semi-oblivion.'

David Miller is an Australian-born poet, critic and artist currently living in Dorset. His books include Spiritual Letters (Contraband Books), Reassembling Still: Collected Poems (Shearsman), The Waters of Marah (Shearsman) and Stromata (Burning Deck Press). David’s writing is celebrated in At the Heart of Things: the poetry and prose of David Miller (Stride). His influences as a writer include friend and mentor Robert Lax.

My interview with David for ArtWay can be read here and my review of his Some Other Shadows for Stride is here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Miller - A Prepared Reading.