Kei Miller

Kei Miller Poems

Kei Miller Biography

Kei Miller (born 24 October 1978) is an award-winning Jamaican poet, fiction writer, essayist and blogger. Miller was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. He read English at the University of the West Indies, but dropped out short of graduation. However, while studying there, he befriended Mervyn Morris, who encouraged his writing. Afterward, Miller began publishing widely throughout the Caribbean. In 2004, he left for England to study for an MA in Creative Writing (The Novel) at Manchester Metropolitan University under the tutelage of poet and scholar Michael Schmidt. Miller later completed a PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow.)

The Best Poem Of Kei Miller

This Zinc Roof

This rectangle of sea; this portion
Of ripple; this conductor of midday heat;
This that the cat steps delicately on;

This that the poor of the world look up to
On humid nights, as if it were a crumpled
Heaven they could be lifted into.

God's mansion is made of many-coloured zinc,
Like a balmyard I once went to, Peace
And Love written across its breadth.

This clanging of feet and boots,
Men running from Babylon whose guns
Are drawn against the small measure

Of their lives; this galvanised sheet; this
Corrugated iron. The road to hell is fenced
On each side with zinc —

Just see Dawn Scott's installation,
A Cultural Object, its circles of zinc
Like the flight path of johncrows.

The American penny is made from zinc,
Coated with copper, but still enough zinc
That a man who swallowed 425 coins died.

This that poisons us; this that holds
Its nails like a crucified Christ, but only
For a little while. It rises with the hurricane,

Sails in the wind, a flying guillotine.
This, a plate for our severed heads;
This that sprinkles rust

Over our sleep like obeah;
This that covers us; this that chokes us;
This, the only roof we could afford.

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