From the Valley of Bronze Camels: A Primer, Some Lectures, & a Boondoggle on Poetry

Jane Miller is a poet who analyzes the works of great poets and painters, exploring the use of the question mark, surrealism, identity politics, and the political implications of language. She also offers advice to young writers and reveals the ideas that have influenced her work.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 152 pages
Publication date: 26 July 2022
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

Jane Miller is a passionate lover of poetry, and in these thought-provoking and profoundly insightful essays, she delves into the works of renowned poets such as Adrienne Rich, Paul Celan, Marina Tsevetaeya, Osip Mandelstam, and Garcia Lorca, alongside renowned painters like Caravaggio and Paul Klee, as well as ancient Chinese music and contemporary poetic techniques. Miller explores the historical significance of the question mark in poetry and its role as a means of revealing the poetic voice. She examines the positive and negative aspects of surrealism in contemporary poetry, its anti-feminist origins in France, its contemporary applications, and the benefits of Super-Real images. Furthermore, Miller examines how identity politics can shape the imagination. She showcases ancient Chinese musical instruments to demonstrate how their sounds resonate within American poems and contribute to the aural integrity of lyric poetry. She also delves into the political implications of language and the evolution and degeneration of words. In an essay about the things she dare not say about poetry, she expresses her opposition to surrealism, narrative, jargon, rhetoric, irony, and appropriation. This masterful work serves as both a guide for aspiring writers and a window into the mind of a writer who has honed her craft through a lifetime of writing, reading, and exploring the world. It not only explores the ideas that have influenced her—feminist, lesbian, and international works—but also how Miller has, in turn, influenced these ideas.

Weight: 218g
Dimension: 136 x 201 x 14 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780472055425