Josephine Miles (1911-1985). Courtesy Wikipedia.
Josephine Miles (June 11, 1911 - May 12, 1985) was an American poet and academic. She was the 1st woman to gain academic tenure in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote over a dozen books of poetry and several works of criticism.
Life[]
Born in Chicago in 1911, Miles moved around a lot with her family, eventually relocating to Southern California. Due to a disabling arthritis, she was educated at home by tutors, but was able to graduate from Los Angeles High School in a class which included composer John Cage.
Miles attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1932, and then moved to the University of California, Berkeley to pursue her doctorate. She was offered a teaching job at Berkeley in 1940.[1] She remained at the university for the rest of her career, becoming in 1947 the 1st woman in Berkeley's English Department to receive academic tenure.[2]
She received many highly-coveted fellowships and awards until her death in May 1985.
She was fascinated with Beat poetry and was both a host and critic to many Beat poets from her chair at Berkeley. Most notably, she helped Allen Ginsberg publish Howl by recommending it to Richard Eberhart, who would publish an article in the New York Times praising the poem. She was also the founder of the internationally distributed Berkeley Poetry Review in 1974 on the U.C. Berkeley campus.
Recognition[]
The PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award was established in her honor to recognize achievement in multicultural literature.
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- Lines at Intersection, New York: Macmillan, 1939.
- Poems on Several Occasions, New York: New Directions, 1941.
- Local Measures, New York, NY: Reynal, 1946.
- After This Sea, San Francisco, CA: Book Club of California, 1947.
- Prefabrications, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press , 1955.
- Poems, 1930-1960, Indiana University Press, 1960.
- House and Home (verse drama), first produced in Berkeley, CA, 1960.
- Civil Poems, Berkeley, CA: Oyez Press, 1967.
- Kinds of Affection, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967.
- Saving the Bay, San Francisco, CA: Open Space, 1967.
- Fields of Learning, Oyez Press, 1968.
- American Poems, Berkeley, CA: Cloud Marauder Press, 1970.
- To All Appearances: New and selected poems, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1974.
- Coming to Terms. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1979.
- Collected Poems, 1930-1983. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1983.
Nonfiction[]
- Wordsworth and the Vocabulary of Emotion. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1942.
- Pathetic Fallacy in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1942.
- Major Adjectives in English Poetry: From Wyatt to Auden. University of California, 1946.
- The Vocabulary of Poetry: Three studies (contains Wordsworth and the Vocabulary of Emotion, Pathetic Fallacy in the Nineteenth Century, and Major Adjectives in English Poetry: From Wyatt to Auden) Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1946.
- The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1640's. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1948.
- The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1740's and 1840's. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1950.
- The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1940's. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1951.
- Continuity of Poetic Language: Studies in English Poetry from the 1640's to the 1940's, Volume I: The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1640's, Volume II: The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1740's and 1840's, Volume III: The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1940's. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1951.
- Eras and Modes in English Poetry. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1957, 2nd edition, 1964.
- Renaissance, Eighteenth-Century, and Modern Language in English Poetry: A Tabular View. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1960.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1964.
- Style and Proportion: The Language of Prose and Poetry. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966.
- Poetry and Change: Donne, Milton, Wordsworth, and the Equilibrium of the Present. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1974.
- Working Out Ideas: Essays in Composition. Berkeley, CAUniversity of California, 1979.
Edited[]
- Criticism: The foundations of modern literary judgment (edited with Mark Schorer & Gordon McKenzie)San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1948; revised edition, 1958.
- (Editor with others) Idea and Experiment (edited with others). Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1950.
- (Editor) The Poem: A critical anthology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959
- revised and abridged as The Ways of the Poem. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961.
- Classic Essays in English. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961; 2nd edition, 1965.
- Berkeley Street Poems, May 1969. Berkeley, CA: Other Ways, 1969.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.[3]
"Belief," by Josephine Miles
See also[]
References[]
Fonds[]
- The Josephine Miles Papers at Washington University in St. Louis
- Guide to the Josephine Miles Papers at The Bancroft Library
Notes[]
- ↑ Josephine Miles, English: Berkeley, Calisphere, UC Libraries, Univesity of California, CDLIb.org, Web, Jan. 29, 2012.
- ↑ "Josephine Miles," Academy of American Poets, Poets.org, Web, Jan. 29, 2012.
- ↑ Josephine Miles 1911-1985," Poetry Foundation, Web, Jan. 29, 2012.
External links[]
- Poems
- "David"
- Josephine Miles 1911-1985 at the Poetry Foundation.
- Audio / video
- Books
- Josephine Miles at Amazon.com
- About
- Josephine Miles profile at the Academy of American Poets
- Josephine Miles, English: Berkeley - Faculty profile.
| This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia. (view article). (view authors). |
|