A Great Night for Poetry

Copyright 2009 Ben S. Pollock

Last Tuesday, May 26, the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective hosted the noted, and local, poet Miller Williams at the independent Nightbird Books in Fayetteville. What a turnout for such a space. The reading area — Nightbird just moved to a larger space, the fondly recalled Ozark Mountain Smokehouse, and soon food will be served among the stacks — held more than 50 seated, about another 20 standing along the back, and in the shop itself I was told another 40, who only could hear him read. Miller read a few of his crowd-pleasing earlier poems then read from his latest collection, Time and the Tilting Earth. On stage, Miller pays particular attention to timing and inflection, and it was over way too quickly. A few days before I was surprised to be asked to introduce him, but accepted the humbling challenge.

Perhaps some people would like to know what I said.

My name is Ben, and I’m a … Am I high-stepping or side-stepping or 12-stepping? My name is Ben, and I’m a writer. It shouldn’t have been up to her, but Jordan Williams, Miller’s wife, taught me it’s OK to say that. We were at some presentation five or seven years ago, sitting together somehow, and the fellow asked, “Are there writers here?” I got gun-shy, self-conscious, and Miller’s wife gave a look: “Well, aren’t you?” It’s not to the qualifying level of good or bad, or merely the quantifying of whether or how much you’re writing. When you write you write. (Raise hand.) Many of us here are writers. Still there are writers and … Writers.

When you’ve published more than 30 books of poetry, criticism, essays, textbooks (or at least books that are used in many schools as textbooks) and fiction — now that’s a writer. When you’ve been honored by your country, by the President at his Inauguration, that’s a writer, big time.

Still with my friend Miller, that’s just a part. It gets to be like the story of the blind men describing an elephant by considering the parts separately. In Miller’s case, elephant might leave the wrong political impression. Make it a donkey.

When I first came to know Miller in the beginning of the decade, he seemed a squire, somewhere between a Patriarch of the University and the Lord of his Manor, yes I mean his home, full of literary and musical history being made, near the campus.

Yet Miller Williams in this town is best known as a professor. A well-known and beloved teacher, of long tenure and extending into his retirement, he is known by reputation and innuendo that’s not always … friendly. You hear a lot when you hang out in Kimpel Hall.

I had to see for myself. In graduate school about six years ago, I connived, though in Journalism, to take Creative Writing classes, arranging my thesis to justify that. I thought, why attend the UA if I can’t connive to take courses by Molly Giles, Ellen Gilchrist and Miller Williams.

I found for myself that Miller as a professor mixed old-fashioned method with contemporary thought. I discovered that as a well-prepared lecturer and a very tough grader where he would disappoint students expecting a pushover. He knows poetry, literary writing in general, and is generous when you get it, and not too lenient when you don’t.

Mainly, though, I am grateful for the chance to stand here tonight, because Miller is my neighbor. After my wife and I signed the contract on the house in early 1999, its owner, himself an already retired professor, in agriculture, and I stood on our front walk. He pointed.

“You know who lives across the street?” No, Jake, who? “Miller Williams, and his wife, Jordan. Know who Miller Williams is?” Well, yeah. And I think: I am a writer, though an editor for the day job, but as a writer and a reader and an Arkansan, by God yes I know who Miller Williams is. And I hoped then that his creative, prolific karma floated in the neighborhood. I think it does.

But that is space-talk. On our first or second day, I was bringing a couple of empty boxes back out to the carport, and there walked up the man I’d seen in photos and television. He introduced himself and produced a plate of Jordan’s cookies and a couple of cans of cold soda.

A couple of weeks later, Miller and Jordan arranged for a small luncheon with a couple of other neighbors and a couple of other people, to welcome us. Things like that. Then two months ago, Jordan and Miller spontaneously took care of our new dog for a few hours when Christy and I had to meet at the emergency room.

As one of Fayetteville’s metaphorical blind men — me — the side of the critter that I behold, that I’ve come to know, of Miller, is his good heart.

Miller Williams.