MILTNER, Robert F. 1949-

PERSONAL: Born February 25, 1949, in Cleveland, OH; son of Eugene (in sales) and Jeanne (a homemaker; maiden name, Higgins) Miltner; married Linda Smith, 1975 (divorced, 1996); married Mari Artzner Wolf (a fiber artist), 1996 (divorced, 2002); children: Alison Elizabeth, Ross Patrick. Education: Xavier University, B.A., 1971; John Carroll University, M.Ed., 1987; Kent State University, Ph.D., 1998. Politics: Liberal Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Book collecting.

ADDRESSES: Home—P.O. Box 20251, Canton, OH 44710-0251. Office—Department of English, Stark Campus, Kent State University, 6000 Frank Rd. NW, Canton, OH 44720. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: English teacher at private religious high schools in Denver, CO, 1975-77, and Parma, OH (also department head), 1977-87; Kent State University, Stark Campus, Canton, OH, instructor, 1987-95, coordinator for developmental education, 1987-93, director of Writing Center, 1990-92, 1995-97, assistant professor of English, 1998—. Walsh University, instructor, 1993-94.

MEMBER: Associated Writing Programs, American Association of University Professors, Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland.

AWARDS, HONORS: Wick Poetry Chapbook Award, 1994, for Against the Simple; New Words Award, 2001.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

The Seamless Serial Hour, Pudding House (Johnstown, OH), 1993.

Against the Simple, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1995.

On the Off Ramp, Implosion Press (Stow, OH), 1996.

Ghost of a Chance, Zygote/Idlewild Press (Cleveland, OH), 2001.

Four Crows on a Phone Line, Spare Change Press (Massillon, OH), 2002.

A Box of Light (prose poetry), Pudding House (Johnstown, OH), 2002.

Also author of curriculum materials. Contributor to periodicals, including New York Quarterly, English Journal, Chiron Review, Ohioana Quarterly, Mid-American Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Jealous Light, "microfictions," for Second Story Press (Salem, OH); two poetry collections, The Diameter of Amazement and Northcoast, Ohio.

SIDELIGHTS: Robert F. Miltner told CA: "I write because it helps me to learn what I need to know in order to grow and survive as a human. I also write because, as a teacher of literature and writing, it is important that I practice what I teach, and that I teach what I practice. I write because writing—all the arts, actually—are the last refuge of individualism, the last authentic activities left in America.

"In a sense I am a regionalist, for I believe that a writer who is both local and national avoids the excesses of provincialism and cosmopolitanism. Our thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and our writing reflect our geography, and our writing communities are fore-most local and regional. Ohio, in particular, has both a rich literary heritage and a lively contemporary scene.

"Primarily I work in poetry, though I also write short fiction. My growing interest is in prose poetry, that delightful mongrel of literature which barks at the edge of acceptability. Prose poetry allows for the unsayable, in a concentrated form, and it disrupts the reader's expectations of the text. In particular, the 'stanzagraph,' a hybrid of the stanza and the paragraph, creates juxtapositions, contrasts, and leaps in the narrative which highlight the poetic elements embedded in the prose."