Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with David P. Miller from our thirteenth issue.
Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?
David P. Miller: Oh my, writing impulses come from all over the place. Music I’m obsessed with. Memories that show up bearing wide smiles, or ones that make me put my head in my hands. Our ongoing political illnesses. Writing prompts of all sorts – though I seem to be partial to process-oriented prompts as compared with thematic ones. Poems by others that I sometimes use as templates, or sources for golden-shovel strings. It goes on!
Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?
David P. Miller: I’ve been lucky to have had artist and writer friends for most all my life. I am nearing 70, so that’s a lot of folks. Before I became seriously involved in poetry, I spent much of my non-income-earning life in performing arts – theater and performance art in particular, music to some extent. My high school music teacher, John Maggs, is still a hero of mine. Two others, John Cage and John Lennon, I never met. I’ll read anything by Ada Limón, Jane Hirshfield, Tracy K. Smith. My friend Marilyn Arsem, founder of Boston’s Mobius Artists Group, is a long-time inspiration. If I name some of my admired peer poets, I’ll leave out all the others…
Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?
David P. Miller: Not really. My writing practice is really quite workaday.
Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?
David P. Miller: “Almost Like Life and Death” got its push when I more or less randomly remembered that old kids’ chant, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back!” What the hell were we saying? Inspiration can arise from being suddenly alienated from something I’d taken for granted. I had to work that one out. Then run a crack down the middle of the poem, so it’s divided against itself.
Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?
David P. Miller: I’m sending out a manuscript with the working title of Yes, All of Them. “Almost Like Life and Death” appears in it. It will be my third full-length book if and when someone picks it up.
Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?
David P. Miller: Talking Heads and XTC are my two favorite bands from the latter part of the twentieth century. In terms of more “experimental” music, Morton Feldman’s Second String Quartet, six hours long, makes for a great all-day environment.
Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?
David P. Miller: I’ve read poetry for my entire life, but didn’t seriously begin to write it until my mid-fifties. That has a lot of implications for how I understand “poetry career.”
Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?
David P. Miller: I’m only on Facebook (meaning, I still haven’t left Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/david.miller.167189.
