Light for the Orphans

Book excerpt: When Robert Penn Warren wrote of his times. "In this century, and moment, of mania,/Tell me a story," doing so in a long poem about the painter. John James Audubon, he might also have been thinking of the poems and characters of Wilmer Mills, who grew up just minutes from where Audubon painted. The two middle sections of this book consist of personal narratives in the voice of a young man coming to terms with his decision not to be a farmer like his father and grandfather. These poems are symbolic of our nation, arguing quietly that, in a way, we are all orphans of the family farm. On either side of his personal account are bookend sections of narrative poems that tell about people from various walks of life. Using the word "orphan" in a broader sense to indicate people who have been marginalized or set apart, either by force or by choice, Mills' poems assert that alienation from a source of meaning in life creates orphans of all ages. Book jacket.