Life and career
editMiller was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of a Panamanian immigrant Egberto Miller and a home maker Enid Marshall Miller. In 1972 he received his B.A. in African-American Studies from Howard University, where he became active in the Civil Rights Movement and studied with Stephen Henderson, one of the leading figures in the Black Arts Movement.[1] .[2] 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 until 2015, .[3][4] 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).[5]
He currently serves as board chairperson of the Institute for Policy Studies.[6][7] 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.[8] 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.[9]
In 1979, Marion Barry, the Mayor of Washington, D.C., where Miller lives, proclaimed September 28, 1979, as "E. Ethelbert Miller Day."[10] Subsequently, on May 21, 2001, an "E. Ethelbert Miller Day" was also proclaimed by the Mayor of Jackson, Tennessee.[11]
Miller's papers are held at Emory & Henry College and The George Washington University.[7][12]
- ^ "E. Ethelbert Miller," The History Makers. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
- ^ "Honorary Board". The Writer's Center. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
- ^ "Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University". Archived from the original on 2009-07-08. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
- ^ Courtland Milloy, "Outpouring of support for poet who says he was let go from Howard", The Washington Post, May 5, 2015.
- ^ "E. Ethelbert Miller", Operation Homecoming, National Initiatives, National Endowment for the Arts, October 17, 2004. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:1was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b E. Ethelbert Miller Finding Aid, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University.
- ^ "Our Story", Poet Lore.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Phillipswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "E. Ethelbert Miller's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
- ^ "About E. Ethelbert Miller | Academy of American Poets". Academy of American Poets. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Emory & Henry College Special Collections & Archives". Archived from the original on August 20, 2008. Retrieved July 12, 2009.