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
Publisher: PM Press (March 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1604860626
ISBN-13: 978-1604860627
Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.4 x 0.8 inches
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.
The 5th Inning is one man's examination of personal relationships,
depression, love and loss. This is a story of the individual alone on the
pitching mound or in the batters box. It's a box score filled with
remembrance. It's a combination of baseball and the blues.
How We Sleep on the
Nights We Don't Make Love Click to order
via Amazon
Paperback: 74 pages
Publisher: Curbstone Press (April 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1931896046
ISBN-13: 978-1931896047
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
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."
Beyond
the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century Click to order
via Amazon
E. Ethelbert Miller (Editor)
ISBN: 1574780174
Format: Paperback, 572pp
Pub. Date: March 2002
Publisher: Black
Classic Press
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.”
Format: paperback, 192 pages
ISBN: 0-312-27013-5
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: June 2001
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
First Light: New & Selected Poems Click to order via
Amazon
Format: Paperback, 144pp.
Publisher:
Black Classic Press
Pub. Date: September 1994
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
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 
In Search of
Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry
