has traveled to Nicaragua, as well as to Yemen,
the Soviet Union, England, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
and Bahrain. By drawing on international inci-
dents as well as commonplace events happening
to ordinary citizens, Miller’s testimonies demand
that readers work against complacency and for-
getfulness and remember to love their neighbors.
His poetry, which can be poignant and comedic,
covers a range of topics including baseball, jazz,
politics, love, and family. In his “Omar” poems,
in Whispers, Secrets and Promises, and in Ho w We
Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love, he ad-
dresses with sensitivity and warmth the influence
of Islam within the black community through the
friendship of two boys. “Rebecca” employs a fe-
male voice to consider the implications of losing a
breast to cancer. In a move typical of Miller’s style,
the character wonders whether she will hate mir-
rors after surgery, but then she thinks:
this is my body
this is not south africa or nicaragua
this is my body
losing a war against cancer
and there are no demonstrators outside
the hospital to scream stop. (174)His latest volume, How We Sleep on the Nights We
Don’t Make Love, traverses the familiar territory
of love, loneliness, and desire but also breaks new
ground. The recent influence of teaching the craft
of poetry to advanced graduate students is dem-
onstrated in the precision of “Alexander Calder,”
which verbally draws an artist’s mobile, and in “All
That Could Go Wrong,” where tercets stall time as
the speaker realizes melancholy parallels between
his father’s life and his own.
Miller’s background in ubiquitous studies
rather than literature has served him well. Hav-
ing learned to operate video cameras document-
ing African-American culture in his early days at
Howard, he has hosted two radio shows, Maiden
Vo y a g e (WDCU) and Vertigo on the Air (WPFW),
and is often heard on National Public Radio. He
currently hosts Humanities Profiled, a television
program sponsored by the Humanities Council of
Washington, D.C. Understanding the infrastruc-
ture that supports the arts, Miller has served on a
number of boards, including the Associated Writ-
ing Programs, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, the
Arts Commission for the City of Washington, D.C.,
the National Writer’s Union, and the Institute for
Policy Studies. He also contributes to the editorial
boards of AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW, CALLALOO,
Washington Review, BLACK ISSUES BOOK REVIEW, Poet
Lore, and Arts & Letters. Through these traditional
academic and scholarly venues as well as programs
in schools, prisons, and libraries, he ensures that
poetry reaches beyond academic boundaries.
Ethelbert Miller was honored with the Co-
lumbia Merit Award (1975), the O. B. Hardison
Jr. Poetry Prize (1995), the Mayor’s Art Award
for Literature (1982), and the Public Humanities
Award from the District of Columbia Community
Council (1988). He was the second recipient of the
Stephen Henderson Poetry Award for Outstanding
Achievement by the African American Literature
and Culture Society (1995). Miller was also one
of the American authors selected and honored by
Laura Bush and the White House at the National
Book Festivals in 2001 and 2003. He lives in Wash-
ington, D.C., with his wife, Reverend Denise King-
Miller, and his two children, Jasmine-Simone and
Nyere-Gibran.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Galbus, Julia. “Fathering Words and Honoring Fam-
ily: E. Ethelbert Miller’s First Memoir.” Re-Mark-
ings 2, no. 2 (September 2003): 7–19.
Pettis, Joyce. “E. Ethelbert Miller.” In African Ameri-
can Poets: Lives, Works and Sources, 249–254.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2003.
Julia A. GalbusMiller, May (1899–1995)
The most widely published woman playwright of
the HARLEM RENAISSANCE, publishing plays and
poems in 29 periodicals and magazines and more
than 20 anthologies, May Miller was born on Jan-
uary 26, 1899, in Washington, D.C., to Annie May358 Miller, May