Miles David Moore was born in Lancaster, Ohio, in the southeastern part of the state, and raised in the nearby village of Sugar Grove. Sugar Grove marks the beginning of the Appalachian foothills--known locally as the Hocking Hills--and in fall they had almost as many "leaf-peepers" as New England or the Great Smokies. Miles had wonderful parents, wonderful sisters, and a huge yard that was wonderful to play in when he was little, not so wonderful to mow when he was older.
Miles knew he wanted to be a poet shortly before his thirteenth birthday, when he found an old book in his house--The Book of Living Verse, a Louis Untermeyer anthology (copyright 1945) that covered English and American verse from "Sir Patrick Spens" and "The Twa Corbies" to W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender. In between were all the greats--Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, Whitman, Dickinson, Housman, Yeats, Frost, Eliot. Seeing the pantheon of poets arrayed before him, Miles thought it would be a wonderful thing to be in another anthology someday, his work among theirs. He still thinks so, although the very idea of a poetic canon has been discredited. He is honored to learn from them and follow their lead, even though his name will never be listed among theirs.
Miles' books are The Bears of Paris (Word Works, 1995); Buddha Isn't Laughing (Argonne House Press, 1999); and Rollercoaster (Word Works, 2004). He also has a new manscript he is sending out to the general indifference of publishers everywhere.
Who is your favorite poet?
Far too many to list, but if I had to choose one, probably Yeats.
What is your favorite poem?
A tossup between The Fiddler of Dooney and Sailing to Byzantium: Early danicng Yeats and late deliberative Yeats.
What lines of poetry do you love?
Again far too many to mention, but I find these lines from Yeats the most helpful to a practicing poet: "God guard me from the thoughts men think/In the mind alone;/He who sings a lasting song/Thinks in a marrow-bone."
What word do you love?
Larkspur. Why would you say something as heavy and pompous as "delphinium" when you could say "larkspur," a word redolent of summer gardens filled with songbirds and butterflies?
What word do you hate?
Debottlenecking. (Moral: Never let engineers and technical types neologize. The change from Candlestick Park to PacBell Park teaches us the same lesson.)
Where do you write?
Everywhere and every place I can. I don't have a set time or place to write; I carry my poems where I carry my brain.
If a dead poet visited you in a dream, who would it be and what do you wish the person would say to you?
Oddly enough, considering the previous answers, not Yeats; I've read he could be a godawful pill. I would prefer Oscar Wilde, who--after making an appropriate witticism--would invite me to share a bottle of Clicquot with him at the Cafe Royal.
Mountains or beaches?
Mountains.
Summer/warmer climate or winter/cooler climate?
I prefer the California Wine Country (Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino), which offers the best of both.
Brain/mind or heart/soul?
Both as needed.
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