Photo Credit: Troy Johnson

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).

 

 

 

Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer
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Paperback: 179 pages
Publisher: Black Classic Press; Reprint edition (August 13, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1574780565
ISBN-13: 978-1574780567

Moving beyond the loss of both his father and brother, E.Ethelbert Miller tells the story of how love survived in his family. When Miller was about ten years old, his father told him how he considered leaving his mother. Years later, now a writer and a father, Miller looks back on the simple remark and how it shaped him. In Fathering Words, Miller explores his development as an African American writer, the responsibility of his chosen career, and his ambitions to raise the consciousness of Black people.

Miller's poetry often relies on the voices of women. Here in Fathering Words, he has chosen to write his memoir in two voices. He places his sister's voice on the page next to his own. The result is a wonderful duet that tells two stories woven into one. Fathering Words is Miller's moving tribute and a powerful memoir.

 

The Fifth Inning
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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
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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
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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.'

Here, E. Ethelbert Miller interviews Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks in 1986

 

First Light: New & Selected Poems
Click to order via Amazon Format: Paperback, 144pp.
Publisher: Black Classic Press
Pub. Date: September 1994

Click here: To read a sample of the poetry contained in First Light

 

 

In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry
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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

Charles Johnson LIVE!
http://www.ethelbert-miller.blogspot.com/

The E-Channel presents the words and wisdom of the writer Charles Johnson. It's Charles Johnson LIVE ! It was created by E. Ethelbert Miller (that's what the E stands for) in January 2011. It's a one year project in which Miller will interview Johnson about his books, beliefs, and various matters of the heart and mind. The E-Channel presents Johnson's own voice. Every word is his. They are responses to questions asked each week by Miller.

“I think together we two brothers---black men in America---created something unprecedented in literary culture, something others might be inspired by and seek to imitate or build upon. This year-long project really IS something never done before, never even conceived of before (in the past or present), and I know how much work you invested in it.” —Charles Johnson

Photograph by Julia Jones