work of Archibald MacLeish and the Chicago Im-
agists, frequently engage in significant spiritual
and ethical questions. “Late Conjecture,” for in-
stance, questions the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice,
while Miller’s “The Dream of Wheat” envisions
“unnumbered rows of ripened wheat” that “March
to greedy ovens.” The poem ends by demanding
starkly, “Who will eat? / Who go hungry?” With
cool-eyed realism, Miller explores in “Weather-
wise” the inability of poetry to effect material
change: “Not one wind dies down / Because poets
rage / Against cold out of season.” “Blazing Ac-
cusation” (The Ransomed Wait) includes a poem
about the murder of four young schoolgirls in the
1963 Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing; the
poem quietly evokes the locus of Christ’s crucifix-
ion to suggest the magnitude of this tragedy.
Miller has been praised by GWENDOLYN BROOKS
as “excellent and long-celebrated” and by ROBERT
HAYDEN, who has said that Miller “writes with quiet
strength, lyric intensity” (Stoeling, 242). Miller is
the author of poems that have been published in
Phylon, The Antioch Review, The CRISIS, The Na-
tion, The New York Times, and Poe t r y. She has read
her poetry at the Washington, D.C., bicentennials
of 1973 and 1974, as well as at the inauguration
of President Jimmy Carter, and she was included
in a 1972 Library of Congress Collection of Poets
Reading Their Own Works. Living well into her
90s, May Miller must have rejoiced to know of the
African-American historical plays by AUGUST WIL-
SON, envisioning them, perhaps, as an outgrowth
of her own prediction of the importance of the
movement she encouraged. May Miller died on
February 8, 1995, in Washington, D.C.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harris, Will. “Early Black Women Playwrights and the
Dual Liberation Motif.” Black Women’s Culture
Issue. African American Review 28, no. 2 (Summer
1994), 205–221.
Meier, Joyce. “The Refusal of Motherhood in African
American Women’s Theater.” Revising Traditions
Double Issue. MELUS, 25, no. 3/4 (Autumn–Win-
ter 2000): 117–139.
Stephens, Judith L. “Anti-Lynch Plays by African
American Women: Race, Gender, and Social Pro-
test in American Drama.” Poetry and Theatre
Issue. African American Review 26, no. 2 (Summer
1992): 329–339.
Stoeling, Winifred L. “May Miller.” In Dictionary of
Literary Biography, vol. 41: Afro-American Poets
since 1955, edited by Trudier Harris and Thadious
Davis, 241–247. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research
Group, 1985.
Lynda KoolishMilner, Ronald (Ron) (1938–2004)
An award-winning playwright, director, author,
editor, critic, and activist, Ron Milner was one of
the finest craftsmen to emerge from the BLACK
ARTS MOVEMENT. Born on May 29, 1938, in De-
troit, Michigan, he grew up on Hastings Street,
known as Black Bottom, with his parents Edward
Roscoe “Cappy” Milner and Thelma Allen Milner.
He graduated from Northeastern High School,
where he juggled basketball and writing, and at-
tended Highland Park Junior College, the Detroit
Institute of Technology, and Columbia University
in New York. He was a writer-in-residence at Mar-
garet Danner’s Boone House Writers, 1962–64,
where he became acquainted with DUDLEY RAN-
DALL, NAOMI LONG MADGETT, and ROBERT HAYDEN,
and at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, 1966–
67, where he met LANGSTON HUGHES, who en-
couraged him to use a more personal voice in his
writing. He taught at Michigan State University,
1971–72, and the University of Southern Califor-
nia, 1979–81. Later he and Shahida Mausi created
the Michigan Theatre Center at the Paul Robeson
Center in Detroit. More recently, Milner worked
with Inside Out, a creative writing project associ-
ated with the Detroit public schools.
Milner’s plays were first staged at the indepen-
dent Concepts East Theatre, founded in Detroit
in 1962, with Woodie King, Jr., David Rambeau,
Clifford Frazier, and Dick Smith. In 1964, Milner
went to New York with Woodie King, who col-
laborated with him for 44 years, and joined the
American Place Theatre, which produced his
plays. By the end of the 1960s, Milner had estab-
lished himself as a skillful craftsman and a com-360 Milner, Ronald