It’s always a thrill to take the stage (field?) with the great E. Ethelbert Miller, and it’s been 1455’s privilege and honor to do so many times in recent years (see him in action during this year’s Summer Fest, last year’s Summer Fest, and our first festival, in 2019, and finally, as a featured guest as part of the 14:55 Interview Series).
The focus of our recent conversation was his remarkable new collection (the second installment of a planned trilogy, book three coming out next year!) When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and other Baseball Stories, but inevitably, we talked about more than baseball or poetry. I say inevitably because, with Ethelbert, every conversation is a history lesson, a master class of literature and culture, and a running commentary on everything from racial relations to romantic relationships, and –at least when the two of us get together– some old school jazz names will necessarily be dropped. Also, like all E’s work, this new collection is intended to inspire dialogue, inviting questions and self-reflection.
Check it out:
The Cardboard Season of 2020
The summer of Black Lives Matter
we looked around the empty ball
parks staring at Black cardboard
faces – wondering who
decided where to place us.
Some of the poems are deceptively simple (we explore the strategy here, and the art of reducing complex issues into succinct poems, which might go down easily but, by design, are not simple to digest; indeed, they are intended to cause some discomfort, instigate some deeper thought), and while this work is a passionate tribute to our national pastime, it also uses baseball as a fertile and potent metaphor for so many things (good, bad, ugly) about America.
As ever, it’s a pleasure to partner with our friends at D.C.’s historic Potter’s House, and we encourage you to support independent bookstores by getting your copies of E’s book from their site!
E. Ethelbert Miller is a writer and literary activist. He is the author of two memoirs and several books of poetry including The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller, a comprehensive collection that represents over 40 years of his work. For 17 years Miller served as the editor of Poet Lore, the oldest poetry magazine published in the United States. His poetry has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. Miller is host of the weekly WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and host and producer of The Scholars on UDC-TV. Miller’s most recent book If God Invented Baseball, published by City Point Press, was awarded the 2019 Literary Award for poetry by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories is Miller’s second book of baseball poems. Here he touches new bases. There are poems about Marcel Duchamp and Ornette Coleman as well as Whitey Ford and Don Larsen. Miller’s poems move the outdoor game indoors where there are moments of disappointment and despair. Baseball can be a blues game. Tommy John surgery is a way of holding onto hope. Many of these poems were written during the Covid pandemic. They beckon fans back to the ballpark. They remind us to enjoy a game that is precious and maybe even essential to our wellness. Coming after If God Invented Baseball, Miller seems to emerge from a literary dugout after a brief rain delay, ready to celebrate the American pastime again.
