Time and the Tilting Earth: Poems

by Miller Williams

Time and the Tilting Earth shows Miller Williams at his sharpest. When he tells us “it’s hard to be understood and make that look easy,” he describes his own poetry perfectly. This latest effort from Williams provides a collection of rhythmical poems in conversational language about the nature of human beings and the world in which we live. In poems covering topics such as science, religion, and marriage, Williams displays in plentiful measures the qualities that have made him a cherished and long-admired mordant and trenchant wit, expert, light-fingered technique, quick understanding of character, and skillful use of irony. In Time and the Tilting Earth, each poem, says the author, begins as the poet’s and ends as the reader’s.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 2008

About the author

Died January 1, 2015.

Miller Williams is an American contemporary poet, as well as a translator and editor. He has authored over 25 books and won several awards for his poetry. His accomplishments have been chronicled in Arkansas Biography. He is perhaps best known for reading his poem "Of History and Hope" at the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Williams was educated in Arkansas, first enrolling at Hendrix College in Conway and eventually transferring to Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, where he published his first collection of poems, Et Cetera, while getting his bachelor's degree in biology. He went on to get a masters in zoology at the University of Arkansas in 1952.

He taught in several universities in various capacities, first as a professor of biology and then of English literature, and in 1970 returned to the University of Arkansas as a member of the English Department and the creative writing program. In 1980 he helped found the University of Arkansas Press, where he served as director for nearly 20 years. He is currently a professor emeritus of literature at the University of Arkansas.

Williams is the father of Lucinda Williams, a three-time Grammy Award winning country music, folk, and rock singer, named "America's best songwriter" by TIME magazine in 2002.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these. They were real, thought-provoking, and most were extremely deep and philosophical. A couple of them even made me chuckle.

It's a very quick read: 51 pages. Quicker if you don't re-read each poem 2-3 times like I did.
Recommend.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the best modern poetry i have found in the past decade. i got this book from the library and i am actually going to go out and buy the book because i want to re-read the poems and have them easily accessible when i am trying to quote a line or remember one of the ideas expressed. one of my favorites is called: "Yesterday, Today" and says in part:
. . . "Still,
where there's a single act of free will
there's something God didn't know was going to be
or the will that brought it about was not free.

So then God knows what God didn't know before.
This is what we call learning, when a mind holds more
on Wednesday than Tuesday. If, as we like to say,
we are what we know, then day to day,
God's not the same. i've thanked God for that on
every church bench and barstool i've sat on."

[Bobby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subject matter of the poems in this short collection almost all deal with weighty subjects: the meaning of life, the meaning of death, the search for God, and the reflections of an old man in the winter of his life. Even though the subjects are heavy, some of the poems are cute and clever without ever being precious. However, there are a few longer poems in here that are breathtaking.

[John Chadwick]

The Master on my poetry shelf!

[Matthew Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty & philosophical. I especially enjoyed:

Irony in the Real World
A Note to the Alien on Earth
Helping a Lady of Eleven Get Her Lessons
Time and the Tilting Earth

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best collections I've read in a while. Williams' poems are brief but communicate a great deal, seemingly simple but also thought-provoking. A true testament to how well these poems are built is that you very often don't notice that he's rhyming them, which isn't done much nowadays and is usually quite cloying when it is done.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyed it.

[Brett Griffiths · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little disappointed with the language variations and the attention to line structures.