The Poetry of Vassar Miller

Vassar Miller wrote eight books of poetry, and published Despite This Flesh, an anthology of poetry and stories about people with disabilities. Her collected poems were published in If I had Wheels or Love (1991, Southern Methodist University Press) and her poetry was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.

Most of the biographical material about Miller notes that she "suffered from" or was "afflicted by" cerebral palsy and in her poems Miller does speak of the sometimes grim impact of CP. But Miller’s poetry is often a celebration of life, humorous, sensual and inquisitive. She had a strong faith (one critic called her "The best religious poet alive in America"), and her faith and her poetry frequently had a strong earthy component. In her poem "Spastics" she wrote about people with disabilities who "…rarely marry, expected to make it with Jesus…" In "Elegy for A Good Ole Boy, a poem about Billy Carter, brother of the former president, she wrote:

In the Sweet Bye and Bye
Lord, give him the cheer
of many a beer.
There it won’t hurt his liver
‘n nobody don’t ever
have no hangover.

Vassar Miller was born in 1924 and died in 1998. The Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry is awarded each year by the University of North Texas Press.

Below are two of her poems. The first is a remembrance of the time her father gave her an Underwood typewriter which enabled her to begin typing her poetry.

If I had Wheels or Love
Subterfuge

[Home] [Our Associates] [Research] [Literature] [Need a Mentor?]
[Doctors] [Videos] [Links] [Conferences] [Donations]