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Letters To The Editor
CAROLINA JOURNAL March 1, 1967 Page 7
Student Says Heather Ross Miller Is No Poet
Mr. Editor:
If Heather Koss Miller is a
poet, then I'm bordering between
John Milton and Alfred Lord Ten
nyson. On February 22, 19CV
in room C-220, Mrs. Miller, who
jiiite ironically calls herself a
poet, gave a superb example of
arrogance personified. In 20 B.C.
Horace, the noted literary critic
said that poetry is to please and
to instruct. Well, hen’s does
neither.
I attended the poetry reading
somewhat embarrassed because
I have never read any of Mrs.
Miller’s works, but when I left
there, I was pleased that I hadn’t.
Her doctrinaire attitudes not only
impregnated her feeble attempts
at verse, but also spilled out into
her generous remarks about any
thing from World War II to Amer
ica in the 1960’s. Mrs. Miller
spent a large portion of the hour
trying to convince her small (quite
fitting) audience that she and her
idol, Randall Jarrell, are the
Point Blank by Larry Keith
The Glory
That Wasn't
Rome Is Here
I had a dream once, a silly flight of imagination.
I was trudging through a snow flurry with a thick book under one
arm and a thick coed under tlie other. A guy behind us was smoking
a pipe and the snow was sticking to his beard.
W e found shelter in an ivy covered building and sat down in a
large lecture room. The professor, an aged fellow in a long, black
robe, open from top to bottom, came in characteristically late, took
his seat before 150 students, and vounched tor communism, atheism
and a new morality.
It was college so we understood.
But at L XC-C, the buildings are new and there ts little grass.
Too few coeds are sexy and no one will lay claim to heresy.
So 1 ask where is tlie glory that was Rome?
1 call my teachers professor and they call me Mr. Keith. My
major is poli sci not political science.
I’ll get an academic degree and conflicting offers from business
and armed service.
But 1 am sad. This isn’t the college life 1 expected.
.\o one protests.
No panty raids. No bull sessions in the dorm. No fraternity-
gatherings. No bond fires for a football team that might go to Florida
over .New Years.
My friends laugh. They come home for Christmas and 1 come home
for dinner.
I hear some of what I’m missing.
‘•You won’t believe this,” one said. ‘‘1 got kicked out of my dorm
for flooding tlie basement with water hose. It was a riot.”
So in one semester he had made the Dean’s List and the dean’s list.
Rut he had nevertheless made it.
And tlien there is the guy 1 know who met girls and liquor tlie same
week. “It’s the only way to live,” he is known to remind. “But 1
don’t guess you have many social advantages at Charlotte College.
•How Did My Dorm Team Do?
“By tlie way, how did your dorm team do in intramural basketball'.’”
Life is cruel but 1 am not ready for such insults.
There is a cute little blonde 1 know at South Carolina who isn’t a
loser even though she did date football players. When basketball
season came she said,“The Gamecocks will be tough tliis year.”
She knew because some Gamecock had crowed in her ear. But
Forty Niners don’t talk much. They practice at Derita Elementai-y
and play games at Garinger High.
So 1 wonder if I’m not cheating myself.
Is tliis college'.’
Am 1 being Educated or educated;’
I sliouldn’t liavc to read “The Trutli About Campus Life” to know
tlie trutli.
Not A Kook In The Place
There aren't enough beards. One guj out here has a beauty, but
he laughs too mucli. lie isn’t a communist, a leper, or anytliing.
Nobody marches for civil liberty or withdrawal from Viet Nam.
The kooks never last longer than a semester, anyway. .At I'CL.Y tliey
are a \ oicc.
I see a picture ol a sexy coed who is in trouble because she is a
sexy coed. .She couldn’t attend here. Her mother wouldn’t let her
leave for school in a tight skirt.
there was briel reprieve this fall. It was worth being a Skimiy
Hat in a lootball game that was won the .Senior .Surfers because some
how you felt you were Joe College.
So did The Charlotte Observer. There we were tlie next mornhig
on the second front. There we were the next afternoon learning tliat
someone in the inner sanctum had asked that the name of the Fniversity
of .North Carolina at Charlotte not be harmed.
I will be old and gray when my friend forgets 1 never went to college.
■Meanwhile, ten per cent of us vote in an election, five per cent go
to a concert, one percent attend a lecture.
t\ here did 1 go'.’
Out.
What did 1 do'.’
Nothing.
■Ynd it makes me sad.
greatest things since Shakespeare.
From wha t I know of the tra
ditions in English literature, I
assume that Mrs. Miller began
and ended her study with Mr.
Jarrell.
For her opener, Mrs. Miller
praised the teaching profession
and spoke of her intense desire
to obtain her Ph.D. I thought
this was quite admirable for she
and I do agree on the attributes
of the teaching profession. How
ever, after she made some of her
trite remarks and read from her
poetry, I could only take the pre
vious remarks as hypocritical.
She in no way indicated that she
had any sincere desire to teach,
for 4 good reasons: (1) Effective
teaching has a very basic and es
sential prerequisite which is an
ability and a desire to commun
icate. Mrs. Miller had no de
sire to communicate but rather,
I think, she was more interested
in indoctrinating us. To inject
a jargonism (my word), her ar
rogance was hanging out all over.
She seemed perfectly content to
stand and gloat in her glory and
smile occasionally when she
thought she spotted a fellow D.A.R.
member in the audience. (2) Also,
the dedicated teacher, of literature
anyway, should have as much as
possible an objective mind. Again
basing my comment just on what
she said, I think Mrs. Miller is
about as objective as Robert Welch,
and, by the way, many of their
ideas closely coincide. (3) Tea
ching requires a profound res
pect and desire for learning. If
Heather Ross Miller has these
characteristics, she certainly is
deceptive about them. I believe
she already knows it all, though.
(4) The teacher should have a
willingness to explore new and
different ideas. Of course, one
who knows everything really has
no need of any conjecture to which
he does not already subscribe.
In one of her readings, Mrs. Mil
ler referred to the bars of the
human body; I do not think that
any person can be bound more
stringently by any intangible than
she is bound by dogmatism.
Heather Ross Miller’s mater
ial is geared solely for the little
old ladies who play bridge all
afternoon, join book-of-the-month
clubs, flock to art shows, operas,
and poetry readings, but never
stop to think about anything. Mrs.
Miller writes and reads for them,
the ones who read poetry not as
it is meant but according to the
rigid standards they have estab
lished for themselves and the so
ciety.
For those of you who were not
present at the reading, I would
like to inform you o f some of
her more shattering insinuations
and implications. For her first
mistake of the day, she made a
crude and uncalled-for remark
about Mario Savio. Perhaps she
was correct in her assertion that
a quote he had made was absurd,
but she had no legitimate reason
for carrying her cynical and sar
castic remark over to Berkeley.
She made several other remarks
about Berkeley throughout the
reading, all being equally derog
atory and illegitimate. I am sure
she knows very little or probably
nothing about Berkeley and there
fore, she should have kept her un
founded remarks to herself.
Other of her uncouth remarks
included nasty insinuations about:
any student who protests anything,
anyone who does not advocate Uni
ted States involvement in Vietnam,
any male who has any reservations
about tlie draft, and anyone who
questions the traditions of the
Judeo-Christian belief. She also
inferred that anyone who has,a
beard i s a beatnik and an unde
sirable of society. Her next ref
erence from out of her radical,
right-wing hat was to the kami
kaze pilots of Japan during World
War II. She said they all died
in a fitting manner because they
died for their country and didn’t
even burn their draft cards.
(Evidently she doesn’t know that
religion was involved). Her hero,
Mr. Jarrell, of course, didn’t get
drafted or burn his draft card
during World War II, but he (with
emphasis)joined the armed forces.
We were honored, I suppose, to
have Mrs. Miller on campus for
I am sure she felt that she was
lowering herself when she came
here to speak. If Heather Ross
Miller is indicative of the English
faculty at Pfeiffer, then they must
surely have a lot of lost souls
there. I am not saying that all
literature ought to be taught in
the liberal fashion dear to me,
but at least the professor can
teach it objectively enough so that
the student can think and make
conclusions for himself. Indoc
trination and propaganda have no
place in the fields of teaching and
yet these are the things Mrs.
Miller thrives on. If Pfeiffer stu
dents are accustomed to her me
thods of teaching, I only wish
some of them could take a few
literature courses at UNC-C. I’m
sure the chance for free-expres-
sion and interchange of ideas would
shock them tor she evidently
doesn’t believe in just anyone
thinking. Undoubtably the reac
tions would be similar to the
experience of being born again,
though not in the sense that she
would teach it.
I can apologize for my frank
ness, but not regret it. You see,
I have this thing about recipro
city, and when one is rude to me,
I have no reservations about re
turning the compliment. I feel
that Mrs. Miller Insulted the in
tegrity and intelligence of her
audience, and if you saw James
Dickey, a real poet, last spring,
you know what I mean. In one
of James Dickey’s explications,
he made a remark which impres
sed me so much that I think
I will never forget him as one
who can elevate the commonplace.
He spoke of a time when he was
a child and saw men working on
a chain-gang beside the road. As
one of the men drew his axe back
beyond his head, the sunlight re
flected from it giving him the im
pression of a bird flying away in
its elegance. Most of you nor I
would have experienced this sen
sation, and I don’t think Mrs.
Miller would have either. Rather,
I think Mrs. Miller could have seen
nothing elegant in anything that was
any way associated with one work
ing on a chain-gang; she would
have seen the men as degenerates
and morally dangerous to the so
ciety. The ability to see beauty
in anything is a rare and noble
quality and one I think which is
quite exemplary of the poet and
separates him from the masses.
No, I don’t think Mrs. Miller is
a poet.
Maybe I was a little too sen
sitive to her slanderous remarks
but they were directed particularly
to young males ( under 25 as she
put it) and I fit in that category.
Perhaps the problem lies in her
manner, but I can only assume that
poetry is as good as its presen
tation. Heather Ross Miller is
one of the masses. Her conser
vatism and arrogance destroy the
good qualities she might have.
I know nothing of her novels and
of her poetry, only what she read.
And for her as a person, I know
only what she impressed on me
at the reading, and I found that to
be deplorable and certainly unfit
to be called by two of the worthiest
of titles-the poet and the teacher.
Jimmy Price
Wonder Whose
Sore Spot Was Hit?
Mr. Editor:
Wow, we must have hit a sore
spot. The Editor had to chop up the
middle columns to get his answer
included, and then gave himself the
heading on our letter. It’s under
standable though, he lays out the
paper.
We won’t argue with the absur
dity of the suggestions of the
committee; he is entitled to his
opinion on this. Whatwewonderis,
why all the worry about sharing a
mascot with anyone'.’ In five years,
what difference will it make from
whom we conned our name, assum
ing we cannot be original. This is
tlie point we cannot fathom. To
■view tlie Editor’s point, if a new
prep school is built on N. C.
49 in Charlotte and tliey choose
49ers, and we have 49ers, do we
have to automatically change our
mascot just so we won’t be asso
ciated witli a “lower” rank in the
peck order'? This action could be
frustrating if new junior and sen
ior liighs continue to be built as
they probably will. Heavens, one
may even adopt the name Chargers!
What tlien?
One of tlie reasons the Editor
liked the Chargers was that it
could be associated with rams and
bulls. Does this mean we should
get a ram and copy Chapel Hill?
Has he considered that J. C. Smith
already has the bull? We would be
willing to bet that more people
over the state associate rams and
bulls with the institutions above
than do Cougars with Charlotte
Catholic High. However, one thing
that hasn’t been considered by the
Editor is that if Cougars is chosen,
maybe Catholic High will get mad
because we copied them, and
change to Chargers,
In all seriousness, being Bio
logists, we would like to have an
animal for a mascot. Considering
the choices, nothing but Cougars
remains. Since tlie primary pur
pose of a mascot is to give the
school some extra spirit, a
symbol of unity, we would Uke to
see the student body drag itself
from its state of letliargy and
poll at least 314 votes in March,
even if some of you have to vote
twice.
Dr. James F. Mattliews
Carolyn Campbell
THE CAROLINA JOURNAL
Published weekly on Wednesday except during holidays.
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