Terry Jude Miller

Portrait of Texas poet Terry Jude Miller wearing a black shirt and gray suit jacket.

Poet based in Richmond, Texas

About Terry

Terry Jude Miller is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet from Houston, Texas. The recipient of many poetry awards including the 2019 Smallest Leaf Award, 2018 Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Prize, Maxwell Prize, and the Inez Grimes award, the Georgia Poetry Society 2018 Langston Hughes Award, a Juried Poet for the 2011 & 2012 Houston Poetry Festivals and winner of the Global Peace Poem competition of the 2012 Tyler Peace Festival, his work has been published in scores of publications including the Southern Poetry Anthology, the Lily Poetry Review, The Comstock Review, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies' “Encore”, the Texas Poetry Calendar, Harbinger Asylum, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Everyday Poets, the University of Houston's Bayou Review, Ancient Paths, Orbis, Stepping Stones Magazine, Furnace Review, Shine Journal, Blue Skies Poetry, Survivor's Review, Live Oak Review, Lamplighter Review, Bijou Poetry Review, Chaffey Review, Foundling Review, Houston Literary Review, Boston Literary Magazine, the Edison Literary Review, and the Birmingham Arts Journal. Miller's books of poetry are titled: “The Drawn Cat's Dream” (published by the Poetry Society of Texas), “The Day I Killed Superman”, “What If I Find Only Moonlight?”, and “The Butterfly Canonical” and can be purchased at barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Society of Texas. He is the creator of the Texas Poets Podcast. Miller is the 1st Vice Chancellor of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.

AWARDS

Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Prize, Maxwell Prize, Inez Grimes Award (2018)
Georgia Poetry Society Langston Hughes Award (2018)
Smallest Leaf Award (2019)
Texas Poetry Calendar - "Wild Wine" (2019)

News

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Books

Click each title to learn more and find a link to purchase your own copy.

Cover of The Butterfly Canonical, a book of poetry by Terry Jude Miller.
Cover of What If I Find Only Moonlight, a book of poetry by Terry Jude Miller.
Cover of The Drawn Cat's Dream, a book of poetry by Terry Jude Miller. It also features the text 'Poetry Society of Texas' beneath the title, and at the bottom it reads, 'Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Prize 2018.'

Anthologies

Click each title to learn more and find a link to purchase your own copy.

Cover of the summer 2018 issue of The Ocotillo Review, a poetry journal.
Cover of issue 17 of Ancient Paths, a poetry journal.
Cover of The Southern Poetry Anthology volume VIII: Texas, a poetry journal.
Cover of the 2019 Texas Poetry Calendar.

Photos

Terry Jude Miller & Yusef Komunyakaa smile and pose for a photo in business casual attire.
Terry Jude Miller & Yusef Komunyakaa
Terry Jude Miller and Li-Young Lee smile and pose for a photo in business casual attire.
Terry Jude Miller & Li-Young Lee
Terry Jude Miller stands at a lectern reading a poem to an audience.
Terry Jude Miller reading his poetry at the Friendswood Library in Friendswood, Texas
Terry Jude Miller, Kay Ryan, and Robert Hass stand smiling together.
Terry Jude Miller with Kay Ryan and Robert Hass
Terry wears a jacket and newsboy cap as he poses for a photo with Big Ben clock tower in the near distance.
Terry Jude Miller at London poetry reading
Terry smiles standing in front of a wall with carved Chinese calligrapic characters filled with gold.
Terry Jude Miller at the Temple of the Soul's Retreat in Hangzhou, China
Terry poses in an overcoat next to a bronze statue of Walt Whitman.
Terry Jude Miller at the birthplace of Walt Whitman
Terry poses smiling beside Pádraig O Tuama.
Terry Jude Miller and Pádraig O Tuama
Terry poses beside James Crews.
Terry Jude Miller and James Crews
Terry poses beside José Antonio Rodríguez.
Terry Jude Miller and José Antonio Rodríguez
Terry poses beside Kimiko Hahn.
Terry Jude Miller and Kimiko Hahn
Terry poses beside Mike Owens.
Terry Jude Miller and Mike Owens
Terry poses beside Steve Schwei.
Terry Jude Miller and Steve Schwei
Terry reads a poem at 2023 Poetry at Round Top.
Miller reads at 2023 Poetry at Round Top
Terry poses beside Victoria Chang.
Miller and Victoria Chang
Terry poses beside Naomi Shihab Nye.
Miller and Naomi Shihab Nye
Terry poses beside Cyrus Cassells.
Miller and Cyrus Cassells

Selected Poems

the open window

For Walt Whitman and Ed Folsom

"Camerado, this is no book,
Who touches this touches a man"
- From Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

it's the most enduring thing
I learn from Whitman, Compadre

this is no poem,
who touches this page, touches my heart

touches the note that changes
the A-chord to A-minor

this is the codex of infinite translations

I felt you enter from an open window
the heat of your hand raises the temperature
of the room, the stanza, the poem

some of this you already know
some you will come to know
but there is much more you will
never know—that part I leave
to you to live out

all are welcome to join my family
tell others you are my daughter
you are my son—you just might be
in one of the many universes

what you don't understand, the sea
will break down and bring around again

this is sign language for I love you
see how my hand trembles
as it scurries across the page like a mouse
as I place my myself upon this leaf

Published in: Bayou Review - University of Houston (2023)

To Belong

We'd give our kingdom.

Sacrifice a white dove,
spread its irony blood
on our faces.

Memorize incantations,
even the words
difficult to believe,
because the necessity of tribe
supersedes the cloak
of belief.

We hurry to the cause
to secure hierarchy,
not for the cause's noble mandate.

We weep when we
sleep without another
body beside us, no bedsheet
is designed for one.

Even those who have no one
marry God or darkness.

Published in: Welter - University of Baltimore (2023)

reunion of old lovers

after Reunion by Megan Fernandes

odd interface—potentiometers of patience
dashboard lights blink in disbelief the plane
has made it around the world again—here
we are at the starting point—but the sun
has moved into a garage with room
for only my Prius—we move to say something
then stop—realize the old philosopher
is right—the waters of this river are different now—
and so are we—and so are we

Published in: Jasper's Folly (2023)

visit

To Lyssa Smith

one of the five—she opens the cemetery gate
as one would open the door of a church
unoiled hinges announce her—she gives the dead
her name

because so few come—she comes
to tend forgotten graves
to hear lonely laments
to offer her ear to the hereafter

she walks about the stones
drags fallen limbs away
brushes detritus from carved callings
rights humble plastic flowers
in label-less soup cans

the buried are many
her hands but two
each stone is caressed
by the madonna's palm
each name is given
to the first day of spring

Published in: Salmon Creek Journal (2023)