I discovered Chuck Miller’s poetry during a brief stint working at a hipster bookstore.

Chuck wasn’t just a local poet. His work was published in several languages.

I followed his career sporadically over the years. He was still giving interviews and poetry readings in the 2010s. Tonight I was saddened to learn that he died in 2024.

Below is a brilliant quote that defines his philosophy. And below that is his stunning poem, “In Celebration of Surviving.”

Here is a quote from an interview with Chuck.

“You see all the rottenness and corruption in the world. If you stand against that, most people sort of understand what you’re talking about, but they’ve kind of made a truce with the rottenness. Whereas, somehow I’ve never made a truce with it. So the only way I knew how to respond was to write something.” — Chuck Miller, poet (1939-2024).

And here is one of his poems.

“In Celebration of Surviving,” by Chuck Miller

when senselessness has pounded you around on the ropes
and you’re getting too old to hold out for the future
no work and running out of money,
and then you make a try after something that you know you
    won’t get
and this long shot comes through on the stretch
in a photo finish of your heart’s trepidation
then for a while
even when the chill factor of these prairie winters puts it at
    fifty below
you’re warm and have that old feeling
of being a comer, though belated
in the crazy game of life

standing in the winter night
emptying the garbage and looking at the stars
you realize that although the odds are fantastically against you
when that single January shooting star
flung its wad in the maw of night
it was yours
and though the years are edged with crime and squalor
that second wind, or twenty-third
is coming strong
and for a time
perhaps a very short time
one lives as though in a golden envelope of light