4 Against the Wall

By Zachary Chartkoff, Sam Mills, Robert Rentschler and Ruelaine Stokes, iUniverse, 2005, 125 pages
Reviewed by Kent Bilderback, March 17, 2022

I grew up near Detroit with Sam Mills as one of my closest friends. We each considered ourselves to be poets. We made a couple of cross-country trips together and I inadvertently shot a hole in his grandfather’s wooden windmill in Orrick, Missouri, the first and only time I ever shot a rifle.

I always thought that Sam would become a famous poet in San Francisco. He was passionate about everything. He was a conscientious objector who, as student body president of Dwight D. Eisenhower High School, publicly denounced Richard Nixon when the latter came to dedicate the school.

Sam had the passion that I always wanted. We both became professional writers, but I’m the one who stayed west. Sam stayed in Detroit as a journalist, technical writer, photojournalist, and poet.

Sam had a way of using the spoken word that I never mastered. He was a body slammer at poetry slams and gathered an intense following.

His fans have continued to honor him with readings of his poems after his death last year. Sam is my favorite poet. Is it because of his poetry or his passion? I don’t know and I don’t care. He just is my favorite poet.