Sylvia's Daughter Says
(writer's website for Tamara Miles)
Latest projects: "Every Corner, Every County," an initiative for the Poetry Society of South Carolina...
and working on a creative non-fiction book and a poetry book.
This website is in serious need of an update. I've gone gray since I last updated it. Bear with me as I start the process of renewal in the spring of 2023. I started with an updated photo, taken on a recent trip to Hilton Head to attend a poetry event (April 6, 2023). I'm now the president of the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and I have much to share. Exciting times ahead...
The radio show has been on hold for quite a while.
The next 50 Years -- a love story
A few years ago I celebrated my 50th birthday. I decided it was time to create the next fifty years in words and images, in memory and poetry, in noise and silence, in opportunity and reflection. Thank you for joining me here and exploring the human dimensions and the curves of the heart.
The first two weeks of August, 2017, I had the honor to be a resident at Rivendell Writer's Colony in Sewanee, TN, at the Pondview House for two weeks. I don't know how to tell you how beautiful it was, how sacred the time and space, how wonderful the other writers were, and the director... Carmen... just the gentlest, best soul you'd want to know. I wrote or revised about a dozen poems, did mixed media projects, and worked on an article. I also did a few submissions and a public reading at the Blue Chair. You can see more about that on my Public Readings page. Writers out there, you'll never find a better place than Rivendell to write and to be restored.
Gestures
My mother turned my bed down
and put on the lamp
when as a teenager, I rambled
late.
We learn of love
in simple gestures, a setting
of the clock for ten more
minutes sleep, the waiting
up after a date ---
a tray with warm
tea (the treasured tiny spoon,
the not-forgotten milk
and sugar) in lavender or mint.
Sheets and chairs
for camp, a low-flung tent,
the kneeling down and peering
in -- the low, slow crawl to join
us with a flashlight in the cool
blackout of the living room,
the natural accompaniment
of a blanket and a night-owl’s
snack, but first, before play,
before the time consumed,
love meant the children’s
room at the library, my arms
full of books, the climbing
in the car,
the radio on 1972.
I started reading on the way.
The book was an early
lamp, and mother,
you were too,
a page turned down.
I went to the Sewanee Writers' Conference in July, 2016 -- see the "More" tab.
My father with his adoptive mother, Alma.
