The Book

Miller Williams was born in 1930, and is a poet, author, translator, and editor. He has authored over 25 books and several poems. He is best remembered for writing a poem for President Clinton's 1997 inauguration. His poem, The Book, in my opinion, is written from a veterans point of view. This poem reminds me of the stories and movies about the Vietnam War, and the struggles the soldiers went through. "He had found it in a fallen bunker," this line is what made me believe it was about war, and also "I stared and a horror grew,". Since many soldiers had trouble talking about the war after they served, this expressed how once he realised his life was the story in the book, it scared him. Miller was sesarching for words to go onto the empty pages, and once he figured it out, the story was soon unraveled and captivated. Although I could not find any proof to back up my opinions, I still interpretted the poem this sense and believe that Williams left this poem open for any kind of readers' opinions. The phrase "Human skin" is also used twice to emphazise Williams effert to give the phrase meaning. The way he talks about human skin, and flesh is deadly in a way that war is always described. The structure of the poem is very splattered. There seems to be several thoughts all just thrown into sentences or short paragraphs, i could not seem to find any specific reason for these sentence structures. My favorite part of the poem is the last line, "How beautiful it was until i knew." This line to me seems to explain how Williams thought the book was something wonderful, but once he unraveled the story inside it became more gloomy and real and it frightened him. It frightened him in a way that all reality frightens us.