Bone Antler Stone

""Our prehistory now has its poet laureate. Tim Miller makes old stones and artefacts sing with new life."" - Barry Cunliffe, Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology, University of Oxford ""The scope of this collection is extraordinary, and the depth of research admirable. But Tim Miller's poetry wears its learning well enough to draw in a non-specialist reader. Prehistory is a gift to the poet in that it can offer the mysterious, poignant detail as well as an intriguing archeological backdrop; it can present us with belief systems and artistic perspectives that are profoundly other to those recognized by contemporary culture.... There are vivid sensory details throughout, and often the poems themselves take on an element of liturgy... Vivid, evocative poetry engaging with ancient concepts of the sacred, and a rich prehistorical resource in its own right... This especially is strong poetry, offering startling insight borne of careful observation."" - Sarah Law, Amethyst Review ""While museum artefacts do feature in poems, this isn't a collection set behind distancing glass. There are cave paintings - as they're being painted. Similarly, customs and traditions, gods and goddesses, burial sites and bog bodies aren't just described and dated; they're brought back to life on the page.... The poems generally are fueled by the flames of storytelling, with violent truths set alongside more positive elements of life.... Reading these poems isn't simply an act of second-hand witnessing, it's an act of experiencing. Yes, this is 'show not tell' in action, and also in keeping with contemporary emphasis on experience, given the seeming ephemerality or fast-changing pace of much of modern life (and prehistoric life in a different way).... Poetic care and crafting is evident in many ways throughout the collection.... I could examine and explore each poem in similar almost forensic, archaeological tagging detail and still return to find new aspects to awe me. Reading from poem to poem, page by page, through the whole collection in order also brings added links and threads between poems and re-appearances that create extra connections. There's lots to admire exploring the collection in this way, but it's also a pleasure to dip into Bone Antler Stone and read more randomly, feeling the lines and enjoying the images and emotions evoked.... For me, Bone Antler Stone isn't just a beautifully crafted, fascinating and addictive collection, it's also a timely reminder that past history is never just the past's."" - S.A. Leavesley, Riggwelter ""[Bone Antler Stone] is an act of powerful sympathetic imagination that forges a connection between lost cultures and our own and that reminds us of our commonality as a species.... The poems themselves are mostly short, unrhymed, and as sturdily built as their subject matter... throughout the book, there is a marked awareness of art's magic, strangeness, and immortality. Many of the people in the poems live (and die) as outsider artists within their cultures: the ""hobble-headed,"" lame-footed smith in ""Song to the Smith""; ""The Seeress of Vix,"" with her ""crooked look"" and ""knobbled walk""; as well as in a series of poems about the ""Bog Bodies""... .Fittingly, in the book's final poem, ""The Wanderer II (Flight from Orkney),"" the poet, using Pytheas as his mouthpiece, envisions his own work as a continuation of art's regenerative power."" - Tom Zimmerman, The Big Windows Review