Miller Williams

I admire Miller Williams’ work every bit as much as I do Lucinda’s and have been trying to decide how to describe the differences in the voices of their writing, the approaches to their material.

It seems to me that they’re similar personality types, only Miller is likely an introvert and Lucinda an extrovert. Using the practical system of description of personality that the Swiss psychologist, C.G. Jung devised, I’d be willing to bet that Lucinda is an Extroverted Intuitive Feeling type, an ENFP in the Myers-Briggs elaboration of Jung’s typology.

I don’t get nearly as strong a feeling content from Miller’s work as is in Lucinda’s. Naturally, it permeates his poems, but not front and center. They are more an account of someone with very deeply held convictions, but always in the background, lurking beneath the surface of the narrative.

One of the more interesting things I’ve read about Miller is that he began college as an English major, was persuaded to study biology instead, pursued medical studies, and actually taught biology before his return to an English department as a faculty member upon the recommendation of Flannery O’Connor. I would guess that he’s the introverted version of his daughter’s type, an INFJ.

I apologize if this psychologizing is obnoxious. Somehow, I doubt that Miller would mind the dissection. He’d object to getting it wrong – if I have – and the brief, lifeless descriptions of something as complicated as personality.

Kent