Points of Departure

Miller Williams was born on April 8, 1930 in Hoxie, Arkansas. He received a bachelor's degree in biology from Arkansas State University and a master's degree in zoology at the University of Arkansas. He taught biology at several colleges before getting a job in the Louisiana State University's English Department in 1962. He joined the University of Arkansas' English department in 1970 and remained a professor emeritus until his death.

His first collection of poetry, Et Cetera, was published in 1952. During his lifetime, he wrote over 25 collections of poetry including A Circle of Stone, Halfway from Hoxie, The Boys on Their Bony Mules, Points of Departure, The Ways We Touch: Poems, and Time and the Tilting Earth: Poems. He received the 1991 Poets' Prize for Living on the Surface and the National Arts Award for his lifelong contribution to the arts.

He also worked as a translator and editor and went on to co-found the University of Arkansas Press, which he directed for two decades. He read his poem, Of History and Hope, at President Bill Clinton's second inauguration. He died after years of battling Alzheimer's disease on January 1, 2015 at the age of 84.

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