Commonwealth Network
This self-styled mountain man was, in his time, the Bay Area's most famous poetaster. He left a string of illegimate children, travelled to England as the embodiment of the Wild West, and returned to find himself ridiculed by his countrymen. Between visits, his English friends (who included the Rosettis) read his poetry and found it bad. Miller preached free love from his Oakland home, The Hights. Sometimes he conducted rain-making ceremonies for curious visitors. They always worked: Miller providentially stationed his gardener, the poet Yone Noguichi (father of sculptor Isao Noguichi), next to a sprinkler valve hidden in the bushes.
On returning to my own country, I found that this unpleasant and entirely impossible figure ever attended and even overshadowed my most earnest work.
Joaquin Miller