E. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist. He is board chair of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). He is also a board member of The Writer's Center and editor of Poet Lore magazine. The author of several collections of poems, his book How We Sleep On The Nights We Don't Make Love (Curbstone Press, 2004) was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist. Miller received the 1995 O.B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize.
He was awarded in 1996 an honorary doctorate of literature from Emory & Henry College. In 2003 his memoir Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer (St. Martin's Press, 2000) was selected by the DC WE READ for its one book, one city program sponsored by the D.C. Public Libraries. In 2004 Miller was awarded a Fulbright to visit Israel. Poets & Writers presented him with the 2007 Barnes & Noble/Writers for Writers Award. Mr. Miller is often heard on National Public Radio (NPR).
Hardcover: 160 pages The 5th Inning is poet and literary activist
E. Ethelbert Miller's second memoir. Coming after Fathering Words: The
Making of an African American Writer (published in 2000), this book finds
Miller returning to baseball, the game of his youth, in order to find the
metaphor that will provide the measurement of his life. Almost 60, he
ponders whether his life can now be entered into the official record books
as a success or failure.
Paperback: 74 pages In this wide-ranging collection of lyrics, dealing with such themes as family, love, racism, and war, E. Ethelbert Miller sets his scenes against the backdrop of the stark realities of contemporary life, here and abroad. As both his love poems and political poems attest, Miller believes with full faith in the transformative powers of love and understanding. His poems on friendship and love are tender, often whimsical. His political poems are evenhanded and compassionate. As Anastasios Kozaitis comments in his introduction, "Miller's poems side with hope, love and humanity. Despite his calls for prayer, Miller avoids metaphysics; he is a love poet among natural objects-a wet towel, a tube of toothpaste, a comb, a bathroom faucet, a bridge, a hat, a steering wheel and some lost keys. Like the poet, his muses also do not relent. All nine sisters put in their time. The reader will find epic topics, historical allusions, musical references, love poems, Katharine Dunham and dance, tragic consequences of human behavior, life's comedies, songs of Bird, and even astronomical observations."
E. Ethelbert Miller (Editor) ISBN: 1574780174 More than 100 prominent African American poets contribute, including the distinguished and award-winning poets Toi Derricotte, Sam Cornish, Jabari Asim, and Pinkie Gordon Lane. This is an expansive collection made rich and full by a powerful synthesis of voices. Here the voices of emerging writers resonate along with award-winning and noted poets. The result is a vibrant collection of Black poetry that delights and amazes with moments of solitude, reflection, rebirth and love. In assembling the poems for Beyond the Frontier, Miller contacted hundreds of writers and reviewed over one thousand poems. Eventually he selected and shaped the poems into a massive book with 175 contributors, 354 poems and 600 pages � making Beyond the Frontier one of the largest collections of Black poetry ever published. Miller is a poet and an intentional anthologist. He has made a career as a nurturer of Black writers and works tirelessly to ensure the survival of African American poetry. �I wanted to compile a work that would chronicle the beginning of a new century and a new age in Black poetry,� said Miller in discussing Beyond the Frontier, �One that included works by those who were prominent at the end of the last century and those that will be prominent into the new century.� Miller went on to say, �This is the beginning, this is the edge, this is the frontier and this volume is actually looking beyond the frontier.� Black Classic Press publisher Paul Coates echoes Miller's sentiment: �This is an important anthology for this day and time,� said Coates. �The sheer comprehensiveness of this volume makes Beyond the Frontier unique and deserving of a place among the best of Black literary anthologies.�
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Format: paperback, 192 pages With frank insight, Miller recreates the steps that led to his career choices. From his childhood in the South Bronx, to his college days at Howard University, to his own evolution into a father and husband, Miller explores how his family and friends shaped his life. In particular, his father Egberto, who came to the U.S. from Panama, and his older brother Richard, who became a monk and died young. With straightforward honesty punctuated by humor and warmth, the quietly pensive Miller tells the original yet universal true story of fathers and sons. "A poignant memoir that belongs in all collections of poetry and African American literature."--Library Journal "Fathering Words is a book of many faces. It is an open-veined and honest thing, packed with poetic moves."--Washington Post "Modest and sincere, this restrained memoir also succeeds as a superb document of the Black Arts Movement of the 1970s and the current African-American literary scene."--Publishers Weekly
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 First Light: New & Selected PoemsClick to order via Amazon
Format: Paperback, 144pp. Click here:
To
read a sample of the poetry contained in First Light |
In Search of
Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry
Click to order via
Amazon
Terrance Cummings
(Illustrator)
Format: Paperback, 256pp.
Publisher: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc.
Pub. Date: November 1995
A sense of pride and heritage speaks through every page of this fresh compilation
celebrating African American verse. Contributors include
Langston
Hughes,
James Weldon Johnson, Thulani Davis,
Gwendolyn Brooks,
Nikki Giovanni,
Alice Walker,
Ntozake Shange,
Maya Angelou, and others. Over 200 poems. 2-color.
Some 200 poems by Afro-Americans, past and present. The
collection includes works by many unknown writers and there is an anthology of anonymous
spirituals. The book is illustrated.
Synopsis copyright Fiction Digest
Commentary
From Publisher's Weekly:
This beautifully designed book, which in visual style seems to merge Art Deco with
WPA backyard, collects more than 200 outstanding poems written by African Americans past
and present. Edited by Miller (First Light: New and Selected Poems), director of Howard
University's African American Resource Center, the anthology gathers a generous range of
work, from anonymous spirituals to Langston Hughes's classic ``Mother to Son.'' It also
includes poetry by Pulitzer Prize-winning Yusef Komunyakaa, Poet Laureate Rita Dove,
Lucille Clifton, June Jordan, the gifted young Elizabeth Alexander and many others. The
editorial choices are imaginative, and not all of the writers will be immediately or
widely familiar-a boon for any reader looking to make discoveries. Some of these who may
be especially appreciated: Eugene Redmond, Angela Jackson. BOMC selection. (Sept.) —Publisher's Weekly
E.
Ethelbert is also included on the
Jazz Poetry Kafe: The BlackWords Compilation CD
http://aalbc.com/authors/jazz.htm
Related Links
E. Ethelbert Miller: On Race, On Writing, and On the
African-American Resource
http://bentoni.com/wnba/April2_sig_miller.html
Washington Review On-line
http://www.erols.com/rotaylor/washrev/contribs/eemiller.htm
Photograph by Julia Jones
The Fifth Inning
How We Sleep on the
Nights We Don't Make Love
Beyond
the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century
Fathering
Words