JIM WAYNE MILLER

by George Brosi

Jim Wayne Miller was an erudite man guided by a truly international consciousness. In 1986, for example, he traveled to both Central America and Europe, and his works include translations from the German as well as original writing in English. The focus of his impressive writing, his compelling public speaking, and his quietly effective leadership was the field of Appalachian Studies.

Miller was so sought-after by academics that for several summers he led simultaneous seminars at both the University of Tennessee and Appalachian State University, driving back and forth across the mountains several times a week! He gave so many workshops and readings at so many places that it seemed the only time he had for himself was driving on the Interstate--in fact, one of his volumes of poetry is entitled Nostalgia for 70, referring to the speed limit!

Some may consider it ironic, others integral, but one of the chief sources of Jim Wayne Miller's wisdom which makes him so sought-after in academic circles is his willingness to learn from ordinary people. His first book of poetry and his third as well focused on his appreciation for his grandfather, an humble hill farmer. His second poetry collection contained many tributes to mountain people who had scarcely any formal education. His fourth and fifth collections are spoken through the voice of "the brier," a quintessential mountain man who city people treat disdainfully.

"The Briar Sermon" in The Mountains Have Come Closer can easily be considered one of Miller's most powerful and important poems. Clearly Miller is as comfortable in the role of preacher as teacher. Without the slightest hint of self-righteousness, Jim Wayne Miller shares his convictions with his audiences, speaking openly about important issues even when they are sensitive or controversial.

Yet Jim Wayne Miller never pushes himself forward. A quick glance at his bibliography reveals that he had put almost as much energy into preparing collections of other writers as he has compiling his own work. When asked to give a reading, Miller almost always reads from the works of other writers as well as himself, and he is likely to read a poem from a junior high drop-out alongside an internationally recognized classic. His presentations typically convey a message on a particular theme with his poetry woven in, along with that of others, to support his message. A presentation by Jim Wayne Miller is unlikely to consist simply of his reading his own works.

Jim Wayne Miller was born in Leicester, North Carolina, in 1936-- the same year that Fred Chappell was born about ten miles to the south in Canton. Miller was raised with five younger brothers and sisters on a farm very near the farmhouses of his grandparents on both sides. Miller's father commuted to Asheville to work as the service manager of a Firestone Tire Store. In 1954 Jim Wayne Miller entered Berea College in Kentucky. He spent most of his junior year in Germany with the Experiment in International Living, and in 1958 he graduated and married a Berea classmate, Mary Ellen Yates, a native of Carter County in Eastern Kentucky. Miller's first job was teaching German and English at Fort Knox, but in 1960 he got an NDEA Fellowship to study those subjects at Vanderbilt University. There in Nashville his two sons were born.

In 1963 Jim Wayne Miller accepted a teaching position at Western Kentucky University which gave him the freedom to complete his PhD in German Language and American Literature at Vanderbilt in 1965. While serving on the Western faculty, he has raised his two sons and a daughter born in 1967, supported his wife as she completed her education and joined him on the Western Kentucky University faculty and embarked upon a successful career. Mr. Miller died in 1996. A fine page dedicated t his memory, with excellent links, has recently been created by B.H. Todd.

Jim Wayne Miller has made an inestimable contribution not only to fiction writing, but also to literary criticism and Appalachian Studies. He has contributed to each of these fields as a writer, a lecturer, a teacher, and an administrator or consultant to innovative programs. Few people are as knowledgeable as Miller on Appalachian Literature, and he is a past Chairman of the Appalachian Studies Conference.

For his convictions, for his competence, and for his concern as well as for his wit, his whimsy, and his wisdom, the field of Appalachian Studies in all its dimensions is the richer because of the dynamic presence of Jim Wayne Miller in its formative years.

by George Brosi

Copperhead Cane. Nashville: Robert Moore Allen, 1964. A 44-page poetry collection.

The More Things Change the More they Stay the Same. Frankfort: Whippoorwill Press, 1971. 64 unnumbered pages of song-poems, limited to 500 copies. This is Miller's most explicitly political poetry collection.

Dialogue with a Dead Man. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1974. A 78-page poetry collection which includes all the poems in Copperhead Cane.

The Figure of Fulfillment. Translations of the Poetry of Emil Lerperger. Owensboro: Green River Press, 1975. An 89-page book of translation of an Austrian poet.

A Checklist and Purchase Guide for School and Community Libraries in Appalachia. Boone: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1979. A 15-page compilation.

The Mountains Have Come Closer. Boone: The Appalachian Consortium Press, 1980. Miller's most significant poetry collection up to that time. 64 pages.

l Have a Place. Pippa Passes: Alice Lloyd College, 1981. A 220-page anthology of Appalachian Writing for high school students.

Vein of Words. Big Timber: Seven Buffaloes Press, undated, but known to be 1984. A 61-page poetry workshop in verse.

Reading, Writing, Region: A Checklist, Purchase Guide and Directory for School and Community Libraries in Appalachia. Boone: Appalachian Consortium Press, undated, but probably 1984. A 46-page up-date of Miller's 1979 Checklist.

Nostalgia for 70. Big Timber: Seven Buffaloes Press, 1986. A 60-page eclectic collection of poetry which the author sums up as depicting "life in the American funhouse."

Sideswipes. Big Timber: Seven Buffaloes Press, 1986. A 19-page satire.

Still, James. The Wolfpen Poems. Edited and introduced by Jim Wayne Miller. Berea: Berea College Press, 1986. An 82-page poetry collection.

Stuart, Jesse. Songs of a Mountain Plowman. Edited with an Introduction by Jim Wayne Miller. Ashland: The Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1986. A 162-page trade paperback.

His First Best County. Frankfort: Gnomon Press, 1987. A short story set along U. S. 23 between Mars Hill, North Carolina and Johnson City, Tennessee. The author's own blurb reads, "Jennings Wells undertakes a condescending investigation of country music as part of his courtship with Roma Livesay, only to discover that country music has researched him, confronting him with his past and turning his life in an unexpected direction."

Brier, His Book. Frankfort: Gnomon Press, 1988. An important 68-page poetry collection.

The Wisdom of Folk Metaphor: The Brier Conducts A Laboratory Experiment. Big Timber: Seven Buffoloes Press, 1988. A little polemic of 16 unnumbered pages.

Round and Round with Kahlil Gibran. Blacksburg: Rowan Mountain Press, 1989. A six-page chapbook of satire focusing on what poetry is and is not.

Newfound. New York: Orchard Press, 1990. A 213-page youth novel set in East Tennessee but with autobiographical overtones.

Williams, Cratis. Southern Mountain Speech. Edited by Jim Wayne Miller and Loyal Jones. Berea: Berea College Press, 1992. This 133-page non-fiction work is the most authoritative and useful book in the field.

A Gathering at the Forks edited by George Ella Lyon, Jim Wayne Miller and Gurney Norman. Wise: Vision Books, 1993. An eclectic 445-page anthology which celebrates fifteen years of the Hindman Settlement School Appalachian Writer's Workshop.

His First, Best Country. Frankfort: Gnomon Press, 1993. This 216-page novel is an expansion of the earlier short story. It centers upon the relationship between two natives of the Tennessee mountains. One has just returned after being away and pursuing a professional career. His new love interest is a woman who never left.