Jauren Miller

Letters to Another Young Poet Jauren Miller

Ever since I can remember, I drew pictures and wrote poems. I never bought greeting cards for special occasions, but created my own with original art and verses inside. I had no professional assistance about how or what to write, so my first attempts at poetry were primitive at best. My poems rhymed and the subject matter was usually religion based. In fact, the first poem I ever had published was accepted by a religious journal. The title of the poem was "To Meditate". I was unable to find a copy of that poem, but I remember the first two lines were: To meditate is just to beReceptive to the endless sea. It's all I remember, but you probably get the idea. It's not even close to the way I write now. In the spring of 1976, I enrolled at Cal State, Fresno, in a class called "Poetry Writing" taught by Philip Levine. I wasn't familiar with Levine's legacy and couldn't have known then, he would continue to win numerous literary prizes including multiple National Book Awards, The Pulitzer Prize, and would become the United States Poet Laureate in 2011. This class with Philip Levine was the beginning of my intense desire to write poetry.