Josephine Miles

Background

Miles, Josephine was born on June 11, 1911 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Daughter of Reginald Odber and Josephine (Lackner) M. Bachelor of Arts, University of California at Los Angeles, 1932.

Education

Due to disabling arthritis, she was educated at home by tutors, but was able to graduate from Los Angeles High School in a class that included the composer John Cage. Miles attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature before moving to the University of California, Berkeley to pursue a doctorate.

Career

She wrote over a dozen books of poetry and several works of criticism. When she was young, her family moved to Southern California. She received a Fellowship from the American Association of University Women in 1939.

She was the first woman to receive tenure in the English Department at Berkeley and, at the time of her death, held the position of University Professor—one of the rarest and most prestigious honors in academic life.

She was fascinated with Beat poetry, and was both a host and critic to many Beat poets from her chair at Berkeley. Most notably, she helped Allen Ginsberg publish Howl by recommending it to Richard Eberhart, who published an article in the New York Times praising the poem.

In 1974, she founded the internationally distributed Berkeley Poetry Review on the University College Berkeley campus. Miles mentored many young poets, including Jack Spicer, Robin Blaser, Diane Wakoski, Diana O"Hehir, William Stafford, and A. R. Ammons.

In reference to her lifelong disability, Thom Gunn recollected that “The unavoidable first fact about Josephine Miles was physical.

As a young child she contracted a form of degenerative arthritis so severe that it left her limbs deformed and crippled. As a result, she could not be left alone in a house, she could not handle a mug..she could not use a typewriter. And she could neither walk nor operate a wheelchair.” Miles bequeathed her Berkeley home to the University of California, which offers the house for use by the visiting Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry.

Achievements

• Josephine Miles has been listed as a noteworthy educator, poet. by Marquis Who's Who.

Membership

Member faculty department English, University of California-Berkeley, 1940-1985, Professor of English, 1952-1985, University professor, 1973-1985. Member Modern Language Association, American Academy Arts and Sciences, American Academy and Institute Arts and Letters, American Society Aesthetics, Phi Beta Kappa, Chi Delta Phi.

Connections

Father:

Reginald Odber Bachelor of Arts

Mother:

Josephine (Lackner) M. Bachelor of Arts