Speed and Memory: An Interview with Jane Miller

Abstract

I first encountered Jane Miller through her 1993 book August Zero. With a vertiginous lyricism, at turns sacred and profane, intimate and cultural, she managed to render an apocalyptic vision without losing an essential tenderness. It was a model to me of the possibili ties of lyric form, and specifically how I, also a western poet, might turn my gaze outward to the physical landscape while maintaining the imperatives of song. So too, her range?between love and dev astation, gay and straight, postmodern and tradition?offered a way to write poetry that evoked the strange trespasses technology bears upon the self. I found her inspirational.