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David Gregory Miller

Writer and Professor of English
Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi, USA 
Camargo Foundation Fellowship: 2005 - Winter-Spring

Project: Sudan Mississippi: a book of poems about Sudanese refugees in Mississippi, attacks on the United States on 9/11 and larger questions of war and peace. Based on the poet's work with a community of Sudanese war refugees living in Mississippi, most of whom first came to the United States as unaccompanied minors, this series of poems reflects on a variety of communities in Jackson, Mississippi attempting to offer support. These young people, recovering from the trauma of war, begin new lives in a country with its own history, conflicts and opportunities. The series also includes poems based on electronic communications with friends in New York, Thailand and other parts of the world during and shortly after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. The book is conceived as a meditation on larger issues of conflict, community and peace. While at Camargo, Miller also completed a second manuscript of poems, tentatively entitled Ursula's Eye. Many of the poems draw direct inspiration from the physical landscape and culture of Cassis and Southern France. Including translations of sonnets by Du Bellay, the book reflects on place, history, the natural world, economic and cultural violence, and the nature of language and the imagination.