Janet and Robert Wolfe Genealogy --- Go to Genealogy Page for Josephine Louise Miles

Notes for Josephine Louise Miles

1911 On 11 June, a female child was born to R O Miles and Josephine Lackner in Cook County, Ilinois. [1]

University of California: In Memoriam, 1985
Josephine Miles died on May 12, 1985, at age 73. Born in Chicago, she moved with her family at a young age to Southern California, where she contracted the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis which would leave her physically crippled for the rest of her life. Confronted with this handicap, she chose to ignore it as far as possible. The willpower which it took to shuffle painfully across a room propelled her with deliberate steps through an unresting and always distinguished career.

In 1932, when universities had thought little of the needs of disabled students, Josephine graduated Phi Beta Kappa in English from UCLA. She first thought of herself as a poet, but when she started her graduate work at Berkeley she became increasingly engaged with analyzing the language of poetry. After obtaining her Master's and then her Doctorate in English, she received two letters on the same day in 1940, one offering a playwright apprenticeship at the Pasadena Playhouse, the other a teaching job at Berkeley. She did not hesitate in choosing the academic life she had already learned to cherish.

Though carefully, even painstakingly crafted, her books of poetry and of criticism began to appear soon after. Her first books of poetry were Lines at Intersection (1939), Poems on Several Occasions (1941), and Local Measures (1946). At the same time she pursued her distinctive line of linguistic criticism in Wordsworth and the Vocabulary of Emotion (1942), Pathetic Fallacy in the 19th Century (1942), and Major Adjectives in English Poetry (1946), all published with the University of California Press. Thus she already had a total of six books and four scholarly articles published before gaining tenure in the English Department at Berkeley in 1947, the first woman to do so.

This pace, once established, was not to let up: there are 76 entries under her name in the University of California library catalog. In her poetry as in her criticism, she continued to explore the idiosyncratic details of words and rhythms, with both the scrupulous verbal precision of a Marianne Moore or Elizabeth Bishop and an intellectual discipline and self-denial perhaps unequalled in her generation. The succeeding books of poetry were Prefabrications (1955), Collected Poems 1930-1960 (1960), Civil Poems (1966), Kinds of Affection (1967), Fields of Learning (1968), Paths (1968), To All Appearances (1974), Coming to Terms (1979, the first book to refer to her affliction), and, finally, her Collected Poems 1980-83, incorporating 51 new poems. Her play House and Home was published in 1966.

Her critical writings in this period reflected the same concerns, and led her in the 1950s to become one of the pioneers in the grounding of criticism in linguistic and computer analysis. Her approach is well illustrated by the titles of her books: The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1640's (1948), The Primary Language of Poetry in the 1740's and 1840's (1950), The Continuity of Poetic Language (1951), Idea and Experiment (1951), Eras and Modes in English Poetry (1957), Renaissance, Eighteenth Century and Modern Language in Poetry: A Tabular View (1960), The Ways of the Poem (1961), Style and Proportion: the Language of Prose and Poetry (1967). In addition she edited, by herself or with her friends, a number of textbooks.

This plethora of titles notwithstanding, Josephine's poetry and criticism converged in her high sense of her vocation as teacher. In large classes as in small, she focused on the needs of the individual student. This is exemplified by her workshop technique of having students "begin with their names": to identify the exact rhythm of their full name and compose a verse exercise to that specific measure. Her success as a teacher of poetry is illustrated by a roll call of some of her most famous students, whose own genius, in the best cases, does not eclipse an affinity to her distinctive economy of style and subject: A.R. Ammons and William Stafford (both winners of National Book Awards), Robin Blaser, Jack Spicer, Diane Wakoski, and Diana O'Hehir. Her recurring institutional efforts to improve undergraduate writing helped lead to the influential Bay Area Writing Project. From 1972 to her retirement in 1978 she held (as the first woman once again) the prestigious title of University Professor.

Partly because of her handicap, Josephine dedicated herself to a life of language and of teaching. Her house on Virginia Street was, to within a few weeks of her death, frequented by poets, students, and former students from all over the country. Her strenuous service to her university and, beyond it, to the politics of her city, made her in later years an oral historian of Berkeley from the times of J. Robert Oppenheimer to those of People's Park. For her large circle of friends, from university presidents to her loyal students, those troubled decades were altered by her unfragile, uncompromising lucidity, and calm.

Poets.org
Josephine Miles was born on June 11, 1911 in Chicago, Illinois, but spent most of her life in California. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she spent her entire academic career and where, in 1947, she became the first woman to be tenured in the English Department.

Miles wrote over a dozen books of poetry, among them Collected Poems: 1930-1983 (University of Illinois Press, 1983), winner of the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize and nominated for a Pulitzer; Coming to Terms (1983); To All Appearances (1974); Kinds of Affection (1967); Prefabrications (1955); Local Measures (1946); and Lines at Intersection (1939). She was also a well-known scholar of the conventions of grammar and vocabulary in literature and published several books on poetic style and language. Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, The American Council of Learned Societies, and The Guggenheim Foundation. A lifelong sufferer from arthritis, Miles died of pneumonia in 1985 in Berkeley, California.

A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Collected Poems: 1930-1983 (1983)
Coming to Terms (1983)
Kinds of Affection (1967)
Lines at Intersection (1939)
Local Measures (1946)
Prefabrications (1955)
To All Appearances (1974)

Non-Fiction

Eras and Modes in English Poetry (1964)
Idea and Experiment (1950)
Style and Proportion: The Language of Prose and Poetry (1966)
Wordsworth and the Vocabulary of Emotion (1942)
Working Out Ideas: Essays in Composition (1979)

Women of the Beat
Born in Chicago in 1911, Josephine Miles's early life was marked by frequent relocation around the country as her father's job and her own illness dictated changes in climate and surrounding. As an infant, she underwent surgery to correct crooked hips. During her recovery, an intern accidentally cut and rather than dress the wound, it was simply covered with a larger cast. The ensuing infection led to arthritis that would cripple the young Josephine, making it impossible for her to attend public grade school.

Her family had moved to southern California, where her health improved and her mother home schooled her until she had a firm grasp of the basic skills, including writing. After that she had a number of tutors, some who took the job more seriously than others, until she was able to attend school in her high school years.

After high school, Josephine went on to University of California in Los Angeles where she earned a bachelor's degree in English literature before moving to the University of California in Berkley to pursue her doctorate. She remained in Berkley for the rest of her life, becoming the first female English professor at the University.

It was during her time as a literature teacher at Berkley that students began bringing a new form of poetry before Josephine and her collegues. The new form excited the students and while some of the other professors scoffed at the lack of convention, Josephine was "intrigued by this new style and encouraged her students to develop their own voices" (Knight 41).

Throughout the Beat movement, she was active as a mentor and supporter, attending readings and discussing their craft with young poets. She took her role as a teacher to heart, publishing frequently and assisting students long after normal office hours.

One particularly important event she was instrumental in was the publishing of Howl, by Allen Ginsburg. When asked by a visiting poet, Richard Eberhardt about new and upcoming poets, se told him about Ginsburg and gave Richard a copy of his most recent work, "Howl." Richard wrote an article in praise of the piece for the New York Times, guaranteeing its notoriety and introducing Ginsburg to the wider audience he deserved.

Josephine remained at Berkley as a professor, receiving several highly-coveted fellowships and awards until her death in May of 1985. She continued to write the entire time, allowing the freedom of the Beat movement to influence her own writing, as she has influenced so many of its participants.

Who Was Who in America - Volume 8, 1982-1985
Josephine Miles (Deceased)
Occupation: educator, poet.
Born: Chicago, June 11, 1911.
Daughter of Reginald Odber and Josephine (Lackner) M. B.A., UCLA, 1932; M.A., U. Calif.-Berkeley, 1934, Ph.D., 1938; D.Litt., Mills Coll., 1965. Mem. faculty dept. English, U. Calif.-Berkeley, 1940-85, prof. English, 1952-85, Univ. prof., 1973-85. Author: Lines at Intersection, 1939, Poems on Several Occasions, 1941, Local Measures, 1946, The Vocabulary of Poetry (3 studies), 1946, The Continuity of English Poetic Language, 1951, Prefabrications, 1955, Eras and Modes in English Poetry, 1957, rev. edit., 1964, Renaissance, Eighteenth Century and Modern Language in Poetry, 1960, Poems 1930-60, 1960, House and Home (verse play), 1961, Emerson, 1964, Style and Proportion, 1967, Kinds of Affection, 1967, Civil Poems, 1966, Fields of Learning Poems, 1968, To All Appearances: Poems New and Selected, 1974, Poetry and Change, 1974, Coming to Terms, 1979, Working Out Ideas, and Other Essays on Composition, 1980, Collected Poems, 1983; co-editor anthology: Criticism, Foundations of Modern Judgment, 1948, Idea and Experiment, 1950-54; editor: The Poem, 1959, The Ways of the Poem, rev. edit., 1972, Classic Essays in English, rev. edit., 1965; Contbr.: Fifteen Modern American Poets, 1956, Poets' Choice, 1963, Modern Hindi Poetry, 1965, Voyages, 1968, Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 1975, Epoch, 1981; contbr. articles, poems to critical revs.; recs 12 Contemporary Poets, 1966, Todays Poets, vol. II, 1967. Recipient Shelley Meml. award for poetry, 1935; Nat. Inst. Arts and Letters award for poetry, 1956; award for poetry Nat. Commn. Arts, 1966; MLA Lowell award for literary scholarship., 1974; Phelan fellow, 1937-38; AAUW fellow, 1939-40; Guggenheim fellow, 1948-49; Am. Council Learned Socs. fellow, 1965; Acad. Am. Poets fellow, 1978; Berkeley fellow, 1979; Nat. Endowment for Arts fellow, 1980-81. Mem. MLA, Am. Acad. Arts and Scis., Am. Acad. and Inst. Arts and Letters, Am. Soc. Aesthetics, Phi Beta Kappa, Chi Delta Phi. Home: Berkeley, Calif
Death
Died May 12, 1985.


Footnotes:

[1] FamilySearch.org, [FamilySearchRecord].