Mills, Wilmer 1969–

PERSONAL: Born October 1, 1969, in Baton Rouge, LA; son of Wilmer R. (a farmer and agricultural missionary) and Elizabeth (an artist and missionary; maiden name, Jennings) Mills; married Kathryn Oliver (a professor of French literature), December 30, 1995; children: Benjamin O., Phoebe-Agnès. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: University of the South, B.A., 1992; attended Virginia Center for Creative Arts and Hambidge Center for Creative Arts. Religion: Christian. Hobbies and other interests: Baking, painting.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—1626 Midway Rd., Sewanee, TN 37375.

CAREER: Woodworker, carpenter, and poet. Also worked as sawmill operator.

WRITINGS:

Right as Rain (poetry chapbook), Aralia Press (Westchester, PA), 1999.

Light for the Orphans (poetry), Story Line Press (Ashland, OR), 2002.

Contributor to magazines, including Poetry, New Republic, Shenandoah, New Criterion, and Hudson Review.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Heart's Arithmetic, a poetry collection; an epic narrative poem, "A Name for Reuben."

SIDELIGHTS: Wilmer Mills told CA: "It may be difficult for me to speak of motivation for something that should more accurately be called a compulsion. I write because it is what I have to do. When I write, I find that I am compelled to try to make sense of the human condition; I want to understand it so as to have a better relation to my fellow creatures, and perhaps be worthy of them. Much of my condition stems from feeling like an alien in a world I do not understand. I tell stories in verse to capture human life in a structure, though too often like a butterfly collector who must kill the specimen he hopes to treasure.

"My earliest inspirations as a youth were Robert Frost for his human narrative and Gerard Manley Hopkins for his use of reinvented alliteration and rhythm that are the ancient essence of English itself. Since the early years I have enlarged my interests, but I find that it is consistently the metrical poets who are of use to my ear. If ear wasn't important I'd just as soon write prose. In other words, I have a strong intolerance for the false effect of free verse. I admire Richard Wilbur a lot, and other contemporary poets who still believe that verse has some persistent relevance apart from prose and the subjective and arbitrary line breaks of free verse.

"I write slowly. It often takes me five to ten years or more to finish a poem. I write five to ten poems per year, or fewer. I write in longhand for drafts, then type the poems on a typewriter to see how they look. I hate the computer. It destroys the imagination and dopes the mind into not realizing how it's been raped. I hate all machines that transplant human, natural processes. Word processors are like chemical pesticides and tractors of the mind. Writing is a work of cultivation, a slow process. In other words, I write 'organic poetry.'"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chattanooga Times Free Press, December 28, 2002, Karin Glendenning, "Little House on the Maintain: Wilmer Mills Creates a Home for His Family," pp. E1-E3.

Sewanee Review, July-September, 2003, R. S. Gwynn, review of Light for the Orphans.

Tennessean, October 6, 2002, Alan Bostick, "Plowboy Poet," p. 14.