Zell Miller III, Austin’s first poet laureate, was born and raised in Austin’s capital city. He said he has a complicated – but beautiful – relationship with his hometown.
“I have seen just the devastation of gentrification,” he said. “But in terms of what it has given me as an artist and the opportunities and the people around it, I can honestly say I would not want to be raised anywhere else but the city of Austin, Texas.”
Miller got into poetry as a young person, listening to music on the radio and writing his own lyrics to his favorite songs. He remembers envisioning the narrative of the song “Hotel California” by the Eagles, and trying to rewrite Prince’s greatest hits.
“But really the (main) moment was when my brother left. My brother, who I’m very close to, Tony, moved to Arizona. And he left me Nikki Giovanni’s ‘My House,’” Miller said. “And he was like, ‘hey, you got to read that.’
And so it was at a moment where a lot of change was going on for me. And honestly, I didn’t want to be of this plane anymore. I looked down and saw that the book was there. And I said, ‘my brother wanted me to read this. Let me read it.’ And once I read that book, I no longer had plans on ending my life. So Nikki Giovanni saved my life, literally.”
Miller said he is honored to be Austin’s first poet laureate. It’s a two-year role through Austin Public Library with the goal of promoting poetry, literacy, and literary arts in Austin and serving as ambassador to advance the library’s mission.
“I think that Job #1 is to make sure that I do such a great job that the position continues. That’s Job #1,” Miller said. “Job #2 is to promote poetry and reading and literacy to everybody in the city of Austin.
I think that poets should be looked at on the same plane as musicians or actors or dancers, because it’s everything that you get from seeing shows like that. You can come to a poetry reading and get the same thing, I believe.”
Miller also has experience in the theater world and with teaching poetry. He has seen first hand the positive impact writing and reading poetry can have on young people.
“I think that once you’re able to tap into somebody’s story — and that’s the way that I approach it as a teacher, or when I would talk to people about it – you can’t say ‘poetry’ because then people kind of flip out about that term. So, I always say, ‘I want to hear your story. Here’s a prompt. Tell me what you think about it. I want to know your thoughts,’” he said.
“And so if you can get people to understand that poetry is just their thoughts, and they can kind of be master of their own story, then you really have a healing tool, you have an entertainment tool, and you have a tool that can be a great equalizer in terms of equality. Because knowing somebody’s story, it kind of wipes away the stereotypes or the ideas that you had about them before you hear their story.”
