Staying Up For Love

Cover image of Staying Up for Love, poems by Leslie Adrienne MillerCarnegie Mellon University Press, 1990
ISBN: 0887480969

Miller’s central subject is passion, and her method . . . is that of the narrated lyric . . . . I especially liked ‘My Students Catch Me Dancing,’ a brief meditation on bad– and intentionally private– art, which reminded me of Elizabeth Bishop’s understated poems about poetry. And in ‘The Future of Beauty,’ she recounts the tale of 12-year olds trying to say the word, ‘aesthetic.’ Miller knows what she’s doing, and the poems evidence her formidable control over her medium. –Virginia Quarterly Review

Miller’s craftsmanship shines in measured form and lyrical rhythms, whether she’s brooding the mood of a lover, contemplating childlessness or lamenting the cruelty of a story on the six o’clock news. Her voice is delicate, but rooted in the earthiness of her Midwestern upbringing. These are fine–and accessible–poems.
Houston Metropolitan Magazine

In this remarkable first collection, Leslie Adrienne Miller’s songs of the body and meditations of the heart reveal those sensual unravelings of experience that bring us both hope and disappointment. In the broken mirrors of her desires Ms. Miller carefully reads the many refractions of the self. This is a subtle and exciting new lyric voice; Staying Up For Love is without doubt one of the most beautiful and heart-breaking first books of recent years.David St. John

Think of Emily Dickinson’s tightly-laced passion uncorseted and you will be prepared for the delicate sexual intensity which pervades many of Leslie Miller’s poems. Using perfect pitch and an eye for luminous detail, she gives us real bodies in imaginary clothes. This is a first book which yields abundant pleasure.Cynthia Macdonald