Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-08-02

VA YIN II. "" July Z9"-JOaquln
Wv Miller, the picturesque poet of the West,
is to be immortalized in Westinghouse
far as a bronze bust unveiled with speeches
and songs can mmortalze a man.
good many people have come to regard
Joaquin Miller as one of the greatest Ameri-
can poets. The British acclaimed him as such
during his lifetime, perhaps because they read
his poetry before they became acquainted with
the man. Over here, attention was arrested
by the sensational facts that he liked to live
alone in cabin in the mountains; that he pre-
| ferred to build the cabin HIMSELF that he
wore long beard like that of Moses in the
! famous Michael Angelo painting, and that he
wore it because he admired Moses and the
| painting; that he attended a reception in Eng
| land in overallS. These and many other bizarre
tales Americans heard about Joaquin Miller
| and his poetry became for most people only
another manifestation of strange personality
such as his addiction to top boots.
Like Walt Whitman and other. strongly in
| divdualistic poets, Miller will probably always
be subject of controversy. But California,
his adopted state, has begun to realize that
Joaquin Miller understood, better perhaps than
! any other poet, the beauty, terror and romance
| of the pioneer West, and that the record pre-
served in his poems is valuable heritage.
! The California Society in Washington paid
| tribute to Joaquin eight years ago, when the
| poet was still alive, when it had one Of his
| log cabin placed in Rock Creek Park with ap-
prOpriate ceremony.
- This cabin Joaquin had built when he spent
| some time in the Capital on his return from
| Europe. He located a spot in a magnificently
| rustic corner of the city, and made his cabin
| of stones left over from the WASHINGTON
| Monument and timber from Rock Greek Park.
| After he left this residence for his California
mountain home, the section around the cabin
was built up into city squares and as Joaquin
was always associated with nature unimproved,
the California Society arranged to have the
cabin placed in a clearing by Rock Creek.
| Here the bust of the poet is to be placed.
| Gertrude Boyle, the sculptor, who has modelled
| the heads of John Muir, Luther Burbank, and
| other famous weSternerS, is the only person
| who ever modelled Joaquin while he was alive.
| She has three studies of him, one Of which
| she is to have cast in bronze for the memorial.
Miss Boyle, who has just been in Washing
| ton to see the place where the memorial is to
| be located told the writer how she went to
| JoaqunS California mountain retreat on "The
! Heights" overlooking Oakland. She went to
model him, but he urged her to make bust
| of his mother at once. He seemed SO impa-
| tient to have his mother modelled that Miss
| Boyle settled down in one of the mountain
cabins nearby and went to work. and the bust
was completed just before Mrs. Miller died.
| Then,l the sculptor stayed in the little
| colony of artists, writer's, and people who
wanting quiet had collected in the half dozen
cabins near the poet. For eight years she
stayed, and during that time she had ample
opportunity to study and model him.
TYPICAL OUTDOOR STATUE
The bust, which is to be placed in the Ma
tonal Capital, shows the poet in the familiar
sombrero hat with his flowing beard and keen
eyes. The lines of coat over one shoulder
are suggested to represent the elk's hide coat
he often wore Slung over his shoulders. The
face is careful likeness. Aside from that
the bust gives the impression of rough, simply
cut lines. 1t is typically an outdoor statue,
heroic in size, and most impressive from a
short distance. Miss Boyle says she tried to
make her statue suggestive of the elemental
outdoor type of man that Joaquin was
He never posed for Miss Boyle consciously.
They talked and read together-at one period
she read the entire Bible aloud to him. Once
she him fighting forest fire that menaced
his little colony.
Gle was so intensely eager and determined