The End of Childhood: Poems

A tender and provocative collection of poems interrogating the troubles and wonders of both childhood and parenthood against the backdrop of global violence.

From accomplished poet Wayne Miller comes a collection examining how an individual’s story both hews to and defies larger socio—political narratives and the sweep of history. A cubist making World War I camouflage, a forlorn panel on the ethics of violence in literature, an obsessive litany of “late capitalist” activities, a military drone pilot driving home after work—here, the awkward, the sweet, and the disturbing often merge. And underlying it all is Miller’s own domestic life with two children, who highlight the hopeful and ingenious aspects of childhood, which is “not // as I had thought / the thicket of light back at the entrance // but the wind still blowing / invisibly toward me / through it.”

The End of Childhood, Miller’s sixth collection of poems, is his most intimate, juxtaposing his own fraught youth with that of his children amid insurrection and pandemic, vacation and vocation, art and war. This piercing book spares nothing as it searches for a measure of personal benevolence and truth in today’s turbulent, brutalizing world—which it confronts through a singularly candid and lyrical voice.