Walkin' with Joaquin

Imagine my delight when I got the most wonderful email the other week, out of the blue. The subject line was,  "Fellow Miller Enthusiast." Hi Kristen, I stumbled over your page completely by chance, and so glad I did. There are not many people any more who cherish and even know who Joaquin Miller was. This is probably a bit strange, but my name is Espen and I am a Norwegian singer-songwriter who have a project called Miller Sessions. We put music to some of Millers poems and I am travelling across Europe and playing them.  I have no other intentions than saying hi to a fellow Miller enthusiast. There are of course a lot of wierd and funny stories connected to why a Norwegian would take on such a project, but I will leave it here for the moment :-) If you are interested in hearing the music you find us on your favourite streaming platform as Miller Sessions. Any how, thanks for remembering him and spreading his stories. All the best Espen Langbråten Well of course, I immediate...

New green grasses were covering every open hill, and the wind blew colder up there than I had expected it to when I left the house on a January Wednesday. But at a picnic table in the lee of the parking lot, I was treated to a cup of coffee brewed by an intrepid biker and fellow history nerd.  Morgan Fletcher , who I met last year on a history walk, rides his bike like Joaquin Miller used to ride ranges. When he's resting and recovering, he searches old newspaper clippings and blogs about them on Fastest Slow Guy You Know . We've become good friends lately by dumping loads information into each other's email boxes, piecing together the stories of this spot on the hill. He unzips a bag that is shaped like, and suspended in, the triangle of space in his bike frame, and pulls out a small stove and a tiny coffee-making apparatus. He grinds the beans as he boils the water, and presses their fragrant spirit right into the Anchor Hocking cups I've brought in a tiny basket.  He...

I’m walkin’ with Joaquin this month in Italy, where he spent many months in the mid-1870s after establishing himself in London. As I ride trains from place to place, I’m reading his Complete Poetical Works , which he put together in The Hights in 1897, and pulling out tidbits and advice for writers. Miller not only collected his poems (the ones he would stand by, he wrote; the rest were reactions to his times, ruined by critics), he talks about them—about where he wrote them and what they meant to him. They’re beautiful. With the rhythm of the rails, I sound out the meter in my head, my fingers correcting the paragraph breaks where the archived text has clumped things wrong. Miller's writing is incredibly lyrical, and whatever reputation he had for gaining fame before he fully developed his craft, he certainly mastered it with the help of his masters, whom he sought in libraries and museums in his European travels. Robert Browning invited him to Venice, where Miller wrote some ...

  Oakland’s own Victorian poet was a walking, talking symbol of the Golden West. We remember him for his frontier ethics and bad boy antics, but don’t fully understand his uplifting magnetism. Kristen Caven, the California Writers Club Writer in Residence at Joaquin Miller Park, will paint us a new picture of Joaquin Miller as America’s late romantic by introducing us to the many fascinating women who loved him. From the legendary Paquita, his Indian bride, to the “White Witch of Oakland,” his daughter Juanita, we’ll meet poets, actresses, heiresses, and the nation’s wealthiest female tycoon. Come hear my new Miller lecture! What: Talk, Q&A, champagne and nibbles When: Sunday, September 14th, 4-6pm Where: Pardee Home and Museum Carriage House,  672 11th Street, Oakland, CA 94607  ( directions ) How Much: $25, proceeds go to the museum

They showed Lin Manuel Miranda's brilliant "In The Heights" musical at Woodminster Amphitheater this summer...and I couldn't resist the opportunity to clap back with an invitation to "In the Hights," a curated cabaret of characters who cavorted in creativity some hundred years ago, and created the Cascade. Please share this information in your newsletter! At the turn of the last century, Joaquin Miller held “bandit barbecues” at his artist’s retreat known as “The Hights” — now known as Joaquin Miller Park. Miller and other writers in the 1890s “Oakland gang” called their readings and skits “jinks.” Join us for a community-sourced meal orchestrated by James Farais of Indigenous Edibles and get to know the Friends of Joaquin Miller Park, an organization of dedicated park volunteers. Stay for a short “lojinks festival” featuring local personalities and literary lights speaking California’s founding voices back into life. Writers/artists l-r: Yone Noguchi, Ambro...

On May 5th, I had the great pleasure of celebrating Robert Browning's birthday with Dennis Parks, the president of The San Francisco Browning Society at the Browning Monument in Joaquin Miller Park. Who were the Brownings and Why is there a Monument to them? Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were two very famous Romantic-era English poets who were also husband and wife.  ( Fun fact:  both Robert and Elizabeth were descendants of mixed-race Jamaicans. ) Robert, who survived Elizabeth, formed a genuine personal friendship with Joaquin Miller when Miller found his way into 1870s London literary life. Miller also visited Robert in Italy, where he wrote more books and poems and made more friends. He was likely exposed to the Brownings' poetry all his life. Miners were known to carry their books among their gold-rush supplies! The San Francisco Browning Society The Browning Society was first founded in London in 1880, a year before Robert died. Chapters sprou...