E. Ethelbert Miller

Last updated

E. Ethelbert Miller
Ethelbert miller 9178.JPG
at the 2013 Fall for the Book
BornEugene Ethelbert Miller
(1950-11-20) November 20, 1950 (age 73)
Bronx, New York, U.S.
OccupationProfessor, poet, literary activist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Howard University
GenrePoetry; memoir
Website
eethelbertmiller.com/main.html

Eugene Ethelbert Miller (born November 20, 1950) is an African-American poet, teacher and literary activist, based in Washington, DC. [1] [2] He is the author of several collections of poetry and two memoirs, the editor of Poet Lore magazine, and the host of the weekly WPFW morning radio show On the Margin. [3]

Contents

Life and career

Miller was born in the Bronx, New York. [4] He received his B.A. from Howard University. [5] He is the author of 13 books of poetry, two memoirs and is the editor of three poetry anthologies. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Beltway Poetry Quarterly , Poet Lore , and Sojourners .

Miller was the founder and director of the Ascension Poetry Reading Series, one of the oldest literary series in the Washington area. He was director of Howard University's African-American Resource Center from 1974 for more than 40 years. [6] [7] Miller has taught at various schools, including American University, Emory & Henry College, George Mason University, Harpeth Hall School and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was also a core faculty member of the writing seminars at Bennington College. He worked with Operation Homecoming for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). [8]

A sign on the north entrance to the Dupont Circle Metro station in Washington, D.C. An excerpt from "The Wound-Dresser", by Walt Whitman, is inscribed into the granite wall around the entrance escalators. An excerpt from "We Embrace", by E. Ethelbert Miller, is inscribed into the sidewalk surrounding a nearby circular bench. Dupont Circle Metro - north entrance sign.JPG
A sign on the north entrance to the Dupont Circle Metro station in Washington, D.C. An excerpt from "The Wound-Dresser", by Walt Whitman, is inscribed into the granite wall around the entrance escalators. An excerpt from "We Embrace", by E. Ethelbert Miller, is inscribed into the sidewalk surrounding a nearby circular bench.

He currently serves as board chairperson of the Institute for Policy Studies. [9] [10] He is also on the boards of Split This Rock and the Writer's Center, and since 2002 has been co-editor of Poet Lore magazine, the oldest poetry journal in the US. [11] He is former chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C., and has served on the boards of the AWP, the Edmund Burke School, PEN American Center, PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and the Washington Area Lawyer for the Arts (WALA). He hosts a weekly morning radio show on WPFW called On the Margin. [1]

In 1979, Marion Barry, the Mayor of Washington, D.C., where Miller lives, proclaimed September 28, 1979, as "E. Ethelbert Miller Day." [12] Subsequently, on May 21, 2001, an "E. Ethelbert Miller Day" was also proclaimed by the Mayor of Jackson, Tennessee. [13]

Miller's papers are held at Emory & Henry College and The George Washington University. [10] [14]

Awards and honors

Bibliography

Poetry

Anthologies

Memoirs

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Dove</span> American poet and author (born 1952)

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020, she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sterling Allen Brown</span> American academic (1901–1989)

Sterling Allen Brown was an American professor, folklorist, poet, and literary critic. He chiefly studied black culture of the Southern United States and was a professor at Howard University for most of his career. Brown was the first Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia.

Ed Cox was an American poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucille Clifton</span> American poet (1936–2010)

Lucille Clifton was an American poet, writer, and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979 to 1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. Clifton was a finalist twice for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Léon Damas</span>

Léon-Gontran Damas was a French poet and politician. He was one of the founders of the Négritude movement. He also used the pseudonym Lionel Georges André Cabassou.

William Jay Smith was an American poet. He was appointed the nineteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May Miller</span> American writer

May Miller was an American poet, playwright and educator. Miller, who was African-American, became known as the most widely published female playwright of the Harlem Renaissance and had seven volumes of poetry published during her career as a writer.

Nan Mallet Fry was an American poet who lived in Washington, DC. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri and grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. She earned a B.A. in English at Wells College, followed by an M.A. in Medieval Studies and a PhD in English at Yale University before settling in the greater DC area. After teaching periodically at American University and the University of Maryland, she joined the full-time faculty in the Academic Studies Program at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in 1983, and remained there until her retirement in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Essex Hemphill</span> American writer and activist (1957–1995)

Essex Hemphill was an openly gay American poet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-American gay community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natasha Trethewey</span> American poet

Natasha Trethewey is an American poet who served as United States Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and is a former Poet Laureate of Mississippi.

Grace Cavalieri is an American poet, playwright, and radio host of the Library of Congress program The Poet and the Poem. In 2019, she was appointed the tenth Poet Laureate of Maryland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Roberts (poet)</span> American poet (born 1961)

Kim Roberts is an American poet, editor, and literary historian who lives in Washington, D.C.

Martin George Galvin was a prize-winning American poet and teacher. He taught at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, St. Joseph's College in Emmitsburg, MD and Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.

Rosemary Winslow is an American poet and academic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Vera</span> American poet and editor

Dan Vera is an American poet and editor.

Claude Wilkinson is an American poet and artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda</span> American poet, artist and author

Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda was named Poet Laureate of Virginia by the Governor, Tim Kaine, on June 26, 2006. She succeeded Rita Dove and served in this position from June 2006 – July 2008. While serving as Poet Laureate, Carolyn started the "Poetry Book Giveaway Project" and added the "Poets Spotlight" to her webpage highlighting one poet from the Commonwealth each month, in addition to traveling widely to promote poetry in every corner of Virginia.

The Poet and the Poem is an hour-long radio interview program hosted by Grace Cavalieri featuring with leading poets and sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Witter Bynner Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tijan Sallah</span> Gambian poet and economist (born 1958)

Tijan M. Sallah is a Gambian poet and prose writer.

Stephen E. Henderson was an American professor of African-American literature and culture, whose 1973 book Understanding the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Black Music as Poetic Reference is regarded as a seminal work. He is noted for providing the first formal interpretation of militant Black poetry, and, with Vincent Harding and William Strickland, for founding the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta, Georgia.

References

  1. 1 2 Hayley Garrison Phillips, "Local Legend E. Ethelbert Miller Isn't Going Anywhere", Washingtonian , February 6, 2018.
  2. Elizabeth Lund, "Poetry that explores love and aggression, baseball and the natural world", The Washington Post , March 9, 2018.
  3. Grace Cavalieri, "Featured Poet E. Ethelbert Miller", 40th Anniversary "The Poet and the Poem".
  4. "E. Ethelbert Miller", Poetry Foundation.
  5. "Honorary Board". The Writer's Center. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  6. "Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University". Archived from the original on July 8, 2009. Retrieved July 12, 2009.
  7. Courtland Milloy, "Outpouring of support for poet who says he was let go from Howard", The Washington Post, May 5, 2015.
  8. "E. Ethelbert Miller", Operation Homecoming, National Initiatives, National Endowment for the Arts, October 17, 2004. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 Krane, Scott (May 26, 2019). "E. Ethelbert Miller: Jazz in Poetry". Jazz Times.
  10. 1 2 3 4 E. Ethelbert Miller Finding Aid, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University.
  11. "Our Story", Poet Lore.
  12. "E. Ethelbert Miller's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  13. 1 2 3 "About E. Ethelbert Miller | Academy of American Poets". Academy of American Poets. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  14. "Emory & Henry College Special Collections & Archives". Archived from the original on August 20, 2008. Retrieved July 12, 2009.
  15. 1 2 "Biography" Archived October 28, 2017, at the Wayback Machine , E. Ethelbert Miller website.
  16. "E. Ethelbert Miller, Eugene Ethelbert Miller". The Black Names Project. April 26, 2019. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  17. "Award-Winning Writer E. Ethelbert Miller Speaks at MC on October 22". Montgomery College. October 20, 2008. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  18. E. Ethelbert Miller biography at Willow Books.
  19. "E. Ethelbert Miller", Beltway Poetry Quarterly.
  20. "Brother E. Ethelbert Miller featured in DoveTales", Gamma Xi Phi, February 15, 2020.
  21. Ethelbert Miller, E. (September 7, 2021). When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories | Poems. Simon & Schuster. ISBN   9781947951365 . Retrieved May 31, 2021.