Books by E. Ethelbert Miller
How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love
In this wide-ranging collection of lyrics, dealing with themes such 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.
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First Light: New and Selected Poems
Much of First Light is autobiographical, a young boy growing into urban manhood; it's a book of family, of strangers, of learning to tell time by the people that populated E. Ethelbert Miller's life. He has populated his work with mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and lovers who fight daily to be able to do simple things like drink clean water and sleep without gunshots interrupting their dreams. He takes instruction from Pablo Neruda, Margaret Walker, political prisoners and finds inspiration in the aloneness of Winnie Mandela. Mostly, it is a book of love, personal and cultural. It's silences are penetrating, its insights are liberating, its violence is quieting and its love is contagious.
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The 5th Inning (Busboys and Poets)
This is a second memoir following Coming after Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer. In this story, Miller is 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; 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, and a combination of baseball and the blues.
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Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer
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.
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If God Invented Baseball: Poems
Here are poems that celebrate and interpret the game by one of America's finest poets. They are for everyone who has experienced the magic released when three holy things come together: bat, ball and glove.
"Ethelbert Miller is one of the most significant and influential poets of our time."
--Gwendolyn Brooks
If God Invented Baseball is a complete game of baseball poems, a full nine innings pitched by a “master twirler,” whose complete arsenal includes fastballs, curves and change-ups, and the occasional knuckler, to keep readers swinging for the fences, his full artistry on display.
Ethelbert Miller's work captures the enjoyment of the game from childhood to old age. Baseball fans will place this book next to their scorecards, peanuts and beer. Poetry readers will equally be delighted.
If God Invented Baseball is a book for the ballpark and the home.
“Ethelbert's replay of baseball joys and sorrows is a must read. He brings us THE GAME with skill and grace. It is an inside the park home run”
-- Clifford Alexander
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In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers
by Carole Boston Weatherford, Dinah Johnson, Angela Johnson, Javaka Steptoe, David Anderson, Sonia Sanchez, E. Ethelbert Miller, Folami Abiade, Dakari Hru, Michael Burgess, Lenard D. Moore, Davida Adedjouma
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award - American Library Association (ALA)
In this intergenerational collection of poetry by new and established African American writers, fatherhood is celebrated with honor, humor, and grace.
In this intergenerational collection of poetry by new and established African American writers, fatherhood is celebrated with honor, humor, and grace. Folami Abiade, Dinah Johnson, Carole Boston Weatherford, Dakari Hru, Michael Burgess, E. Ethelbert Miller, Lenard D. Moore, David Anderson, Angela Johnson, Sonia Sanchez, and Davida Adedjouma all contribute. Javaka Steptoe, who also offers a poem, employs an inventive range of media to bring each of the poems to life. In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall testifies to the powerful bond between father and child, recognizing family as our greatest gift, and identifying fathers as being among our most influential heroes.
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