Miller Williams, Poet, Dies

Miller Williams has reportedly passed away in Fayetteville. He was the well-known poet in Arkansas, publisher, reader of one of his poems at Bill Clinton inaugural and, oh yeah, father of Lucinda Williams.  On her latest album--really, the best of the year--she opened with one of his poems set to music, below. And, here, from a poem he wrote about turning 50:

Year in, year out, most of us do our best
To make a hundred, perfect on the test.
The problems get harder, the teachers don’t grade fair,
But hell, the bell ain’t rung and you’re halfway there.

A good deal about Miller in this Bill Bruford profile of Lucinda in The New Yorker.  Also his close connection to mythic young poet Frank Stanford, a lover of Lucinda's (and manhy others) who killed himself at age 29, inspiring her songs "Sweet Old World" and "Pineola."