Birth Dates of Notable Kentuckians: October 21, 1936 – Jim Wayne Miller

  Image from www.jimwaynemiller.com


From The Kentucky Encyclopedia –
Jim Wayne Miller, poet, was born October 21, 1936, in Leicester, North Carolina, son of James Woodrow and Edith (Smith) Miller. He attended Leicester public schools and graduated from Kentucky's Berea College in 1958 with a B.A. degree in English literature. He served two years as a German instructor at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and did graduate studies in German and English literature at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 1965. Miller became a professor of German at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green , taught folklore and creative writing courses, and served as consultant to Appalachian studies programs in neighboring states. A major southern poet and fiction writer popular at poetry readings and workshops, he is known throughout Kentucky. Miller has been a featured poet on several television programs. His first collection of poems was Copperhead Cane (1964), followed by The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same (1971); Dialogue with a Dead Man (1974); The Mountains Have Come Closer (1980), winner of the Thomas Wolfe Award; and Vein of Words (1985). Miller's translations include The Figure of Fulfillment and The Salzach Sibyl by the Austrian poet Emil Lerperber. His work appears in the anthologies Contemporary Southern Poetry, A Geography of Poets, and Going Over to Your Place. His first novel, Newfound (1989), is set in Appalachia.

Miller married Mary Ellen Yates of Carter County , Kentucky, in 1958; they have three children: James, Frederic, and Ruth Ratcliff.

JOY BALE BOONE, Entry Author

Selected Sources from UK Libraries:

Lasater, Michael., Jim Wayne. Miller, and Western Kentucky University. Television Center. I Have a Place the Poetry of Jim Wayne Miller. Bowling Green, Ky.]: Western Kentucky U Television Center ; [distributed by Barr Films], 1985.
AV-V2251, Young Media Library

Miller, Jim Wayne. Copperhead Cane : Poems. 1st ed. Louisville, Ky.: Green River Writers/Grex, 1995. Print.
PS3563.I4127 C670 1995, Young Library - 5th Floor

Miller, Jim Wayne., and Rowan Mountain Press. Round and round with Kahlil Gibran. Blacksburg, Va.: Rowan Mountain, 1990. Print.
PS3563.I4127 R68 1990, Special Collections Research Center