A BOY IN THE CITY IBD

Sinopse

A Boy in the City is a masterful poetic sequence and a testament of the human spirit. It is written in the best of what is 'the American grain.'áPhilip Roth comes to mind, in his exhibition of tenderness as comic relief, when Michael MillerâÇÖs 'boy' finds his grandmotherâÇÖs corset, or when that same child touches his 'right side,' asking 'God to keep/ My appendix whole,' after he loses his mother, who wasnâÇÖt 'supposed to die/ From a ruptured appendix.'áMore so, this sequence is also a significant homage and elegy to the Brooklyn Bridge, and is not dissimilar from Hart CraneâÇÖs masterpiece, The Bridge.áIn Michael MillerâÇÖs poem, we traverse the span where we feel both the bridgeâÇÖs reverberation and the poemâÇÖs sheer resonance: 'I stopped in the center/ Of the bridge, its cables/ The links of consistency/ Its curvature a graft/ Of the eternal.' And as in Walt WhitmanâÇÖs work, Michael MillerâÇÖs poetry evinces both loss and healing.- Wally Swist, author of Taking ResidenceáPoetry is an ocean into which all sorts of rivers enter, like boisterouságuests. One of literatureâÇÖs obsessions is childhood. We all know Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield, the only real difference is their surroundings. They are intrigued by two things, the world and themselves, but they are fascinating because they think about and explore what we realize we should be doing.áMichael Miller looks back, way back. He is experienced enough to know the world he writes about is gone, and then he brings it back to life. He is one of those poets who demand re-reading as soon as you finish reading, and the effect is stimulating. There is the dissemblance of adolescence, and some deaths, and all you can think of is the taste in your mouth of your first strawberry. Yes, thatâÇÖs what poetry does.á- Daniel J. Langton, author of Personal EffectsááProfessor Emeritus, San Francisco State UniversityAbout the AuthoráMichael MillerâÇÖs poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Sewanee Review,The Southern Review, Raritan, The Yale Review, and other journals and books.áHe lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.