Here are a few things to follow after the storm:

1. Bush ratings. Bush isn't running for office again so low ratings don't mean anything. How will history remember him? 9/11, the fight against terrorism, The Katrina Mardi Gras affair, or his Supreme Court picks? Take your pick. Oh- and don't forget the 2 Wars. What follows Bush is what we should focus on. The Katrina situation might make it easier for a Republican candidate to try and break with the Bush agenda. Do the Dems have a first round pick next election season? It's sad when a Party or team stays in last place too long. Not even Red Sox fans will back losers
again.

2. Look for one more major event to hit us in the head before the end of the year.
This might be anything from another natural disaster, bad war news, or what my Mom might call "the devil just up to no good again."

3. Try and follow stories that will just disappear from the news - The Rowe affair, the decision not to accept Katrina assistance from Cuba, etc. I was surprise to see the VP surface. Now that he has - so will Halliburton and its relief efforts. Look for "mucho" aftermath New Orleans stories to begin to surface like zombies. Some will wander the internet forever. Like those chain letters out to do harm. Here are places where nonsense might take root:
In a comment made by Dick Gregory, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan.
Maybe a word label will be placed in sauce by Cornel West on a talk show. Oh...and check for a long poem from a black poet linking all of this maybe to Israel or how we could have been protected if we had built New Orleans using the knowledge from Egypt. Yes, and if the levee was destroyed by "white" people to flood the 9th ward then blame it on someone with a mysterious trumpet- who has a new jazz sound and was denied a job at the Lincoln Center.

4. So who will get the big book,or movie deal? This is going to be on television by spring 2006. Who will tell the tale and from what angle? Will it be a story with special effects? A love story? A terrible story about race? Will it be one story about a single parent saving their family? However it's done, it will make a large number of people invisible once again. For every "warm" story you see or read about there are countless others that are sad and can't get worse because it's on the bottom. It's the "bottom blues." Months from now someone will kill someone because they willl just snap...the sad seed planted by all this horror. The mental health of a people is often invisible behind a mask. Anti-government feelings might last long after Bush is gone.
Oh, and look for the Far Right to be very upset about the government taking folks guns away and forcing folks to leave their homes. In the long run this type of "issue" is what survives the storm and alters our landscape forever.

Good News from NO regarding the Library:

NOPL Archivist Wayne Everard writes: "There was no water in the Main Library except for the usual slight backup from the sewerage system and a couple of minor leaks evident on the first floor. I was in with Irene and Linda Santi a good bit of the day yesterday. Two windows in the Technology Center were blown out and there was some damage in there, but that was probably good in that it confined damage to that one room. There is no evidence that anyone was living in the building; we suspect that the police/National Guard went in a broken window, looked around and left through the back door. With help from City Hall we got plywood up over the two windows. But the news is very good."

NOPL Assistant Archivist Irene Wainwright adds: "The New Orleans City Archives, which we hold, is relatively safe. Although the majority of our records (as well as the 19th- and early 20th-century records of the Orleans Parish civil and criminal courts) are housed in the basement of the Main Library, some 18 feet below sea level, the basement remained essentially dry. Wayne Everard, our archivist, and I were able to get access to the building yesterday, along with another NOPL staff member and a representative of Munters. We discovered that the basement sustained no flooding, although there is a very small amount of water in one area, possibly caused by sewer backup. This water caused no direct damage to records themselves.

"The Main Library itself (across the plaza from city hall, about four blocks from the Superdome) came through almost unscathed. Several windows blew out in the area of our Technology Center causing quite a bit of damage there, but the damage is confined to that closed-in room. There is also evidence of very minimal roof leakage on the first floor-most of it missing the books. On the whole, however, the Main Library is in excellent shape. Earlier reports that vandals had entered the building are incorrect. Our branch-run van was looted and we believe another van was stolen from the parking lot, but it is clear that no one got into the building, either to vandalize or to shelter there.

"The NOPL system itself has been hit hard-probably about half of our 11 branch libraries are under water. But these we can (and will) rebuild. The fact that the archives have survived leaves us almost delirious with relief. We are working now to arrange for Munters to stabilize the Main Library building until we can all return and begin the rebuilding process.

"Thank you all for your expressions of concern and offers of assistance. We are unbelievably lucky, and I think I now believe in miracles."
--

Who Runs Your World?
WETA and BBC will sponsor a discussion of power.

Does the United States run the world? If so, how? Missiles, money or music: which is more powerful?

September 15th at 3:30 PM
DAR Memorial Continental Hall, The O'Byrne Gallery
17th Street, NW Entrance between C & D Streets.
On the panel will be my friend Dr. Nancy Snow. Snow is a Senior Fellow at the College of Communications at Cal State Fullerton. Other participants will include:
Jeffrey Baxter, Dr. Joseph Nye, and Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA).

Brochures are out for the 10th Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference.
October 22, at Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland
The keynote speaker is Pat Conroy.
I will be moderating a morning panel on "African American Writing in the 21st Century" at 10:15A.M. On the panel will be Patricia Elam, Kenneth Carroll, and Merle Collins.
In the afternoon (1:30 -4:30 PM) I will be leading a workshop on memoir writing.

I took a morning flight out of National this morning. While at the airport I ran into my buddy Maria. We were two of the founding members of the Humanities Council of Washington DC many years ago. We laughed about the empty nest syndrome. All the kids out of the house. It was fun...we plan to get together before the month ends.
I'm in Indiana working with my friend Julia. I packed several tapes that will be transcribed for the book of interviews she is editing. I also will edit 1 year of my E-Notes for the second memoir. A lot to do in a few days...but I'm in an excellent working space.

I'm trying to kick a cold down the stairs. I'm not doing too well. I received my video copy of the Edward Jones interview I did for HoCoPoLitSo. It will air on television again in a few weeks.

I have fiction coming out in the following Prentice Hall book:
AN ANTHOLOGY FOR CREATIVE WRITERS: A GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS edited by Beth Anstandig and Eric Killough.
Publication date is January 2006

I'll be speaking on a panel "The Role of Humanities in International Peace" on October 1st at Wilson Senior High School. It will be a brief 15 minute presentation.

Sarah Browing is putting together COMMEMORATION, COMPASSION & COMMUNITY: A DAY-LONG FUNDRAISER FOR THE VICTIMS OF HURRICANE KATRINA on September 11th (9AM -11PM) at Busboys & Poets, 14th and V Street, NW
www.busboysandpoets.com

I've been corresponding with folks in Chicago at the American Library Association about future help for Louisiana libraries.
Here is the address for the Louisiana Library Association -Disaster Relief:

LLA - Disaster Relief
421 So. 4th Street
Eunice, LA 70535


New season opening for the African Continuum Theatre. I plan to go see I HAVE BEFORE ME A REMARKABLE DOCUMENT GIVEN TO ME BY A YOUNG LADY FROM RWANDA. This is a play by Sonja Linden. I plan to go see it on September 17th.


On September 13th there is going to be the 7th Anniversary Fundraiser for The National Black L.U.V. Festival.
www.blackluvfest.info

I have a poetry reading tonight at The Nora School, 955 Sligo Avenue in Silver Spring. It's in support of Robert Giron's anthology POETIC VOICES WITHOUT BORDERS
which was recently published by Gival Press. Other poets reading will include:
Karren Alenier, Christopher Conlon, Robert Giron, Peter Klappert and Gregg Shapiro.

If you wonder what survived Katrina it's speeches. Race is always an issue in the US.
I keep my Baldwin by my bed. So why are we so shocked about poor black people being left to die? It happens everyday, everywhere, everyday.
This could be Somalia or Haiti. It was Malcolm and others telling folks to understand the South and the Congo. New Orleans was more than music and food. It was a very poor city. There are parts of DC that are just as poor too. Do we need a hurricane to see it?

People should pray with their eyes open.

The day after taking your son to college. You return to the house and sit in his room. This is the first time its been very, very clean. It's like a museum. Nothing but basketball trophies and a few pictures on the wall. So what do you do now? Is this the first day of something? Or is everything over?

Today I received a wonderful book from my friend Don Mee. She was recently in Australia and purchased for me, THE BEST AUSTRALIAN POETY 2005 edited by Peter Porter. This book looks like a nice lunch meal. Yum.

Sad note back from Jerry Ward. He lost all his Richard Wright material because of Katrina.

A wonderful day to be on the campus of Widener University. The entire family drove up to drop the kid in the dorm. :-) He was happpy to see us go...so that he could get on with life. The basketball coaching staff met us in the student center and we got everything done in about 30 minutes. Can we package this experience and share it with other schools? My son has his books, schedule, meal plan, etc. I'm looking for him to return to DC in November. Widener might play 3 games in the area. It will be nice to see my son playing in a new uniform. He hasn't peaked and is still developing into a fine ballplayer. I can see a new confidence on his face.

The drive back to DC from Chester, PA was quiet. Something to write about in my second memoir. Another chapter about to begin. I feel good. More to report after I rest and rise.

Two quotes in today's Washington Post from members of the Arkansas National Guard back from Iraq and now in New Orleans:

"It's just so much like Iraq, it's not funny," said Atkinson,of Woodlawn, Ark., "except for all the water, and they speak English."

"It's like Baghdad on a bad day," said Spec. Brian McKay, 19 of Mount Ida, Ark.

This is what IPS is doing:

Hurricane Katrina and the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network

Sept. 6, 2005: Join SEEN director, IPS Fellow and Earthbeat co-host Daphne
Wysham and an array of specialists in a radio special on Hurricane
Katrina, live on Tuesday, Sept. 6, at 10 a.m., Washington, DC, time. The
show will also be streamed live on WPFW-FM, Pacifica Radio, Washington DC.

Also visit our website for the latest on Katrina and a list of eco-relief
suggestions, background on global climate change and the hurricane, and
other items of interest: www.seen.org.

For an extensive catalogue of other timely news and information on the
Iraq war, defense contractor profiteering, and other issues, also visit
the Institute for Policy Studies website at: www.ips-dc.org

Well, it didn't take long for this story to make it to the Washington Post. Just like I thought: See page A32.

"Havana - Cuban President Fidel Castro held a televised meeting with about 1,500 doctors equipped with medical supplies, in hopes of persuading the Bush Administration to allow them to treat victims of Hurricane Katrina. Castro said the United States had not responded to his offer to send medical workers and 26 tons of supplies to the devastated U.S. Gulf Coast."

So what should the Bush people do? Wouldn't we help Cuba if it was in bad shape? So why shouldn't Cubans (many of them black) help other Black people in need? Old Cold War politics will probably prevent this from happening. Who will be the losers?
This is the type of door that opens during a crisis and helps to improve relations between nations.

Of course folks often take the hard line and say no. Iran did this after an earthquake. They refused help from Israel. Some people will carry "politics" to the grave only to be buried under it. I refuse to weep.

Morning music - "Ballad of John and Yoko" - The Beatles Again Album.
Oh..and "Can't Buy Me Love."

So where are we today? Last night I read Christian Caryl's excellent article "Why Suicide Bombers Do it" in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. Must reading for folks.

One of the best ways to counter the threat of suicide terrorism is to eliminate the conditions of occupation that give rise to the phenomenon in the first place.

Talking about conditions, a few more thoughts about NO/MISS/Alabama. That's my term so that folks are not overlooked.

Wynton Marsalis is taking part in various fund-raisers to help hurricane victims.
One is going to be in New York at the Lincoln Theater's Rose Theater on September 17th.

One can go online to Earth.Google.com and obtain aerial views of any address affected by Katrina.

So you're the Prez - do you appoint C.Thomas as head of the Supreme Court? Is this a way not to lose the black vote for future Republican candidates? Desperate times lead to desperate acts. Folks are dealing with damage control. Look for an increase in militancy developing within the Black community. Some of this will be frustration at help arriving too late. Think about the person who had a love one die in front of them - and it could have been avoided. A prayer service, a blanket and a bottle of water is not going touch the deep hurt and anger. Seeds are being planted in the minds of young Black people. So it's 10 years from now and someone is on a rooftop shooting at cops. Why? No different from what we see around the world. There is also just a small window of good will. There are short term and long term solutions. Look for the window of good will to evaporate like water after a few weeks. If folks are still living in bad conditions there are going to be small riots breaking out. This will turn host communties against the "refugees." It seems we are just taking people in right now...there is shelter, and there is getting people back on their feet. We can't do this unless we deal with the poverty/class issue. If a large body of the people now homeless were poor to begin with, how do we really help them? What were we doing before Katrina? The poor are always invisible. I'm afraid that we are just going to see a large dislocation of people. Our society can "absorb" only so much without a challenge to its structural foundation. If Jackson is correct about looking at the hull of a slave ship, then we must extend the metaphor and ask the type of questions Lincoln was thinking - What do I do with the emancipated slave?
Can we send them to some other country? Which gets back to this "refugee" question - what if Cuba decided to take in maybe 200 -300 black families? Would people go? How would America explain this? And what if those families Cuba took were being treated better six months later than folks still stranded in Houston? This could be a public relations nightmare. It's also the slick type of thing Fidel would do - like going to Harlem when he was a young revolutionary. Cuba knows how to play the race card too. Or maybe Chavez makes an offer. Would that be another reason to kill him?
So you're Black and living in a stadium and a bus is taking you to a boat...Where is this Middle Passage going?

Remember: life is a breath;
soon I will vanish from your sight.
The eye that looks will not see me;
you may search, but I will be gone.
Like a cloud fading in the sky,
man dissolves into death.
He leaves the whole world behind him
and never comes home again

- From The Book of JOB.

So how do we prepare for what might be coming next? America right now seems to have it's hem caught in the door of history. She keeps pulling and things might just get worst. For example, between now and 2010 or 2015, how will we respond to a major earthquake in California? We know it's coming just like another storm...
Will we simply blame another president?

When do we "really" begin to change our energy policy?

Might it be necessary to begin moving large numbers of our population away from coastal areas?

If you told someone the Towers would be gone back in 1991 who would have believed you? Now maybe New Orleans is gone too. What's next another Great Chicago fire?
We might have to reinvent America. What happens if we discover our federal goverment can't take care of us? Do we look for new political structures? So it's two years from now and folks from New Orleans are still living in temporary shelters in Houston.What if folks want the "refugees" to leave? What if Houston residents object to the federal policies that are affecting their communties? Will the Lone Star state attempt go it alone again? We need to think outside the box. Our landscape is changing.

Somewhere, a young child in New Orleans might begin to start praying to a different God. Tell the folks in the Homeland Security Office this one -
The child is sweating, it's 90 degrees, he has no water and someone appears out of nowhere and says..."As Salaam Alaikum." Maybe it's a guy with a dirty beard and warm eyes...and maybe he was selling incense and oils just before the storm. But now he is helping people in need. Rumors spread about a man who saved the elderly and pulled women from the waters. He had a long robe and he spoke a strange language...

Well just think of Master Fard going door to door in Detroit selling silks or that Minister once known as Sweet Lou taking a ride in a space ship over Mexico. These are strange times - just ask anyone who has been living in the Dome the last few days. This ain't a baseball or football you're watching.

Percival Everett's new novel was reviewed in the Washington Post Book World today.
The title is WOUNDED. The publisher is Graywolf.

New books coming out this fall that you might want to read:

Mirror to America by John Hope Franklin
The March by E. L. Doctorow
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Female of the Species by Joyce Carol Oates
Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley


To of the list for me is going to be MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

J. M. Coetzee has a long piece on Walt Whitman in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books.

I plan to complete "Club Des Amis" by Tony D'Souza this evening. It's the short fiction in the THE NEW YORKER (September 5, 2005).


I watched the Nationals defeat Philadelphia. Frank Robinson is taking charge, trying to push this team into the playoffs. He banned music, card playing and cell phones in the dressing room. Yes, it's business baby. We need more Franks in our lives, not hot dogs. If you want to win you have to will yourself into it. You push yourself beyond even pain. This is the key lesson that I think I learned from my son. Now that he is leaving for college, I look back on what I learned from his childhood. Too often we think just about teaching our children. Well, the little people teach too. My son pushed himself into playing an entire basketball season with a bad back.
I remember being in a high school gym in Virginia a few months ago, and he was knocked down hard. The entire gym stopped and went silent. I just reached from my wife's knee and the air pushed out of my lungs as if it was finding a way to restart.
I watched my son on the basketball court not moving...
And then he gets up and is helped to the sidelines. You wonder how he is walking but you're happy that he can. It's several minutes later and he is telling the coach he is going back in,and you see him pushing the ball down the court,and pushing himself too;looking at the score and realizing that time is running out but that he controls the seconds. Life is nothing but seconds ticking away, and each one as precious as a drop of water.But the better taste is the taste of victory and this is what he desires more than anything. This is what he can taste.

I heard back from folks that Mona Lisa Saloy is OK. She is in Baton Rouge. Here is her email address: saloy1@aol.com

So much to do in the world and the world keeps changing. This is what life is all about. How much do we value life over material things? How important are the basics in life? I think about people everytime I drink a bottle of water. How precious is this stuff? How much do we waste everyday? How important is family? Someone to call during an emergency. Friendships are never the same after a crisis. Some survive and others never return to the level above sea level. How much do we really care about our fellow human beings? Do we count our blessings because we Have while others have not? It's Sunday and we pray to Jesus, but what about the rest of the week? How many of us what to get back to normal conditions? And what if you were poor before the storm? Is normal being poor again?

How many people will profit from this? They will fill their tanks with the misery of others and get extra mileage from it. So you're a witness to what happened but you have no compassion...you report on the tragic but you celebrate that you have the comfort of a roof above your head; or maybe you simply have the skills where you can walk into a new job and place. But so many others will be looking for a grocery cart to put what little they have in. A four wheel home. One of the major problems in the world today is the refugee problem. That's why it's so important that Americans not be listed under this label. To be a refugee is to become invisible. It means your lifeline is maintained not by a government but by charities and religious people who understand fundamental Christianity. To be a Christian means you must wash the feet of others. Humility is the tablecloth of faith.

It's Sunday morning. 7AM and my son invites me to the basketball court. This is our farewell. He's grown. Our cat Rebbe follows us for about a block. I tease my son about how just a few years ago I was shouting at him not to play ball in the street, now I'm yelling at Rebbe to get back on the sidewalk. The nearby playground is empty.
I haven't been on a basketball court in months. I watch my son hitting jumper after jumper. It's automatic. "I'm ready, for college." he grins. I take a few shots and my son shakes his head. "How, did I ever let you beat me?" he laughs. It feels good being out with the sun coming up and my son leaving home.

Afterwards we walk to the supermarket to buy a few things. We talk with neighbors who are surprise to see the two of out together. My son drives now - so why walk?
I like these moments when it's just the two of us walking down the street and I think of my own father, and I can count the number of times we did this, and still the number is less than the fingers I have, and maybe I keep subtracting instead of adding. I don't know.


I do know that in a few days it will be 9/11 again. Look for someone to give free baseball tickets to people from New Orleans and Mississippi. It's a media moment.
A camera will focus on a young child who maybe never went to a baseball game and he will be eating a hotdog and having a good time. And the V/O will say -priceless and this is why the game of baseball is so important. They won't remind folks that there are winners and losers. How many black people swinging at air and having no relief pitchers to help them.

Extra innings and it's 2005 in America. Who is pitching this shutout against our rights and full equality? I can see the television getting some Black singer to sing the national song the only way we know how. Yes, and the flag is still here and there. And this is all America. We are not refugees but citizens who demand that our country protect us the way we have protected them, and still do, war after war.

I read in the newspaper about the damage to the Jeferson Davis library in Mississippi. Hmmm.
No wonder there have been so many references to slavery the last few days. Is someone catching those Davis books in nets and reading them aloud? How much history will sink after all this is over? How much will float to the top bloated and misunderstood? Will the "old" South rise again?

If there is going to be a New-New Orleans look for black people to be reduced to historical signs- saying they once lived there. Investors might come in and restore the place so that only a certain "class" of folks can return. Are we going to provide "new" housing for low income folks? What about jobs?
Questions not too many people can answer right now, and in the words of Bob Dylan, "sometimes even the president of the United States, sometimes has to stand naked."

Prayers to the Rehnquist family.

Now look for a "judicial" hurricane to hit: A Supreme Court shift to the Right.
Everyone might be looking for shelter now; especially women.


And after the waters parted - there was Clarence Thomas, and he was not alone. But he was black and his friends dressed in black...and the old folks took this as an omen.They shook their heads and prayers fell from their mouths into the earth but did not grow. It was not the best of times. It was Judge/ment Day.

>>INFO: south bronx issue of mosaic
=================================

Mosaic Literary Magazine 15

THE BOOGIE ISSUE
For all of its seven years Mosaic has called the Bronx home. In this issue
we focus on poets who were born here or, as in the case of James Baldwin,
spent formative years in the borough.

Poet and educator Dr. Tony Medina talks with Cave Canem fellow Jacqueline
Johnson about the current state of poetry.

James Baldwin's friend and editor Sol Stein talks of their early days at
DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, NY.

E. Ethelbert Miller slowed down just long enough to discuss poetry,
scholarship, and Howard University.

Boogie Down Productions: Work from five Bronx poets featured in the book,
"Shout Out."

Plus book reviews

Visit
http://mosaicbooks.com/maginfo.htm to get your issue.

The whole planet's watchin'
And the Sun God is watchin',too

Jah will stop this reign
Watch our world turn
To help those in pain

Just because they're dark 'n' lovely

- Stevie Wonder


When you don't know where you're going, go by a way you don't know.
- Chinese proverb

Today in DC the sun was out. It was a beautiful day. It was the kind of day you sit in a cafe with your lover and talk about the news or write a Frank O'Hara type of poem. It was the kind of day when everything except the sun seems far away. War, New Orleans, etc. So you listen to the conversations and people are talking about Black people and Bush, and everyone has an opinion. Cellphones ring and you here about someone "getting out" or someone is "safe." You sip your drink and look at cars passing in the street. You could be president of the United States on vacation.
Your bike is parked at the curb.

But blaming Bush is like giving theater tickets to Lincoln. The last thing we need is a special commission to look into why things failed in NO/Miss/Alabama. Another 9/11 report and we don't make changes or we say we can't afford to make the changes.

So now we have all these Black people in temporary shelters and I'm waiting for someone to sing a sorrow song to General Howard and maybe start another Freedman's Bureau. "What to do with the New Orleans Negro?" Is that going to be the title of a secret document in some government agency?

Rumors spreading and you never know if some poet in New Jersey might write a poem
about a conspiracy. Or maybe we've just been ignoring Black people in the South since the Communist Party and the Nation of Islam had plans. How many black home owners will never own a home again? So much to think about. I look at people sitting in the cafes on this nice day and wonder how long they will think about what's going on.

Folks are donating stuff. Know where your donations are going. Tomorrow is Sunday.
Jesus is going to have to walk on water again. We are a people in need of miracles.
Is that a burning bush?

From an old WASA newsletter:

The 2005 hurricane season, which began June 1 and continues through November 30, has already spawned a number of tropical storms, several of which have become hurricanes.
Forecasters have predicted 12 to 15 named storms in the Atlantic this season, with seven to nine likely to become hurricanes.

So what's coming next?

Yes, it looks like Haiti and that could become a problem too. Haiti is always off the map. Black people in poverty. The scab of America is off and look who is bleeding. I remember a few years ago when Sen. Wellstone undertook an RFK type of journey around the South. He wanted to put poverty back on the American agenda. Shortly after that I wrote to him and invited him to Howard. He came and gave a speech...that was when many of us was hoping he would run for President. That seems so long ago.

Let's not forget poor whites who are also missing faces in all of this. Now and then you see a white face in a sea of blackness. White problems in rural America are just as serious as the big urban black ones. Some of these problems are BBQ pits just waiting for racism to heat up.

Faith is when you see the sun behind the clouds.

Now is the time to reconstruct hope. We survive the floods...we look for the rainbow sign...remember what God told Noah...it's the fire next time.

I'm heading down to a morning breakfast meeting at Busboys & Poets...some folks interested in doing a fundraiser for NO/Miss on September 11th.

Missing from all this has been our VP. Is he well? This would be the type of situation where one would expect his organizing skills to help Bush get a handle on things. Look for Bill Clinton to be in the Big Easy hugging black people in a few days. Bush 1 too.

Our musicians (especially the jazz ones) should try and host a world-wide concert to assist our government and people get back on their feet.
Since we are now "refugees" we should get UN support behind this too. No need to think we are too proud to ask other countries to help.

We also need to build new alternative cities for folks. Many people can't or won't want to return to New Orleans and parts of Mississippi. I keep including Mississippi in my E-Notes so that it won't become Missing Mississippi. It's just like the two wars we are fighting - not one but two. I don't feel anyone should be living in a tent or hotel for 3-4 months.

Assistance should really be sent to folks who have kidney problems, diabetes, AIDS, etc. Special assistance should be given to very young babies and the elderly. If we don't help them immediately then they will become part of the rising death numbers.

Medical schools across the country might want to give special credit to students who might want to volunteer for 1-2 weeks rotating stints.

The key is to coordinate things well. We also need to move forward with plans to deal with another storm. So rebuilding levees is a very important task.

All of us better start budgeting and getting ready for all the oil/heat price increases...they will start coming this weekend.

OK...what are our Labor Unions doing? Poets are meeting.

Here is an excerpt from a song my friend Andrea Wyatt wrote:





Ride away from the superdome with Jesus,

Ride on through to Houston by dawn,

Shiver on an air-conditioned bus

With nothing but the clothes you got on.



Who you gonna ride with, Jesus?

The rich man in the suv?

Who you gonna ride with, Jesus,

Come on, Lord, and ride with me.

How long have we been gone? Race like warm Coca Cola is now coming out of the mouths of everyone talking about New Orleans. Why are people so surprise? The South is BlackFolks.This is where our numbers are. We are also poor people. We live one check away from a hurricane. This is not Brooklyn, Chicago or Detroit - this in New Orleans and also Mississippi. Many of the folks were three steps behind the Civil Rights Movement. Just go back to what King was trying to do in 1968. Here are pictures of the poor folks that wanted to come to Resurrection City...in fact - folks should direct those buses to DC. Hmmm. Folks camping around the Government until answers and supplies are given before promises. So much anger going around it's not good.
What can we learn? We just can't live in the present. We have to make sure we protect our enviornment and that we listen to folks talking about how the river bends and the trees grow.
Can you imagine if the situation in New Orleans had been an act of terrorism? Folks would be blaming other folks and running around trying to lynch someone. Or folks who looked like the "sinners." If we have problems getting food and essentials to key parts of the country then we have problems. Let's throw into the mix a nuclear plant damaged and radioactive material walking around like it's carnival time. What would we do? The sad thing about all this is that in a few days the story is going to be pushed off the front page and folks will want to know about how Madonna is doing? Or where Michael Jackson might buy a new home. Meanwhile, poor black folks will become invisible. Black folks who were middle class will be looking for work and maybe not finding it. Look for the migrations to take place (again)...folks moving into Texas and California...or heading up North. Look for the military to recruit folks into the National Guard. How can someone turn that down? Don't you want to help "your" state get back on its feet? I could write a poem and pitch that one.
I keep looking at the pictures...the one on the front page of today's NY Times says it all. A body floating by under an overpass in downtown New Orleans.Another woman in the picture not even paying attention. The dead body looks like it was taken down from a cross. If you want to know where the blues come from it's right there...survival music...and it ain't a pretty picture.

LIT NEWS:

National Endowment for the Arts Announces New Director of Literature
submitted by National Endowment for the Arts
Details August 24, 2005

The National Endowment for the Arts announced today it is appointing San Francisco Chronicle Book Critic David Kipen as the agency's Director of Literature. Among his new responsibilities, Kipen will design and lead national leadership initiatives, develop partnerships to advance the literature field, and recommend panelists and manage the review process for literature applications. He will assume his new responsibilities on September 6, 2005.

Since 2000, David Kipen, 42, has been the book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle where he reviews six to eight books each month. He is also a book critic and essayist for National Public Radio's "Day to Day" program and presents Santa Monica station KCRW-FM's weekly commentary and podcast "Overbooked."

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia said, "The National Endowment for the Arts has a tradition of Literature Directors who have regarded literature as one of mankind's highest arts and most moving means of communication. David Kipen upholds that tradition with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the world of the written word. I know that he will not only carry on the great work of the NEA's Literature program, he will explore new ways of connecting Americans to great writing and great writers."

The other problems:
Excerpt from the New York Times (8/31/05):

If flooding - rather than strong winds - turns out to be responsible for most of the damage caused by Katrina, many displaced homeowners may be in for more frustration.
While most have insurane that protects them against wind damage, such insurance rarely covers floods. Homeowners must buy flood protection separetely.

In Hancock County (MS), 1 in 4 households are insured against flooding. In Jackson and Harrison Counties, the number is 1 in 10.

This is not good.

Dear Ethelbert,

Love you, love you and bless you and all who've asked and expressed concern. My
internet access is limited and people are waiting in line to use the three
computers here at thehotel. I've sent the following to NBC Nightly. Please do
me the favor of forwarding it to any interested news service you can.

Much love always,
Brenda Marie

To Whom It May Concern:

Those of us who did leave the City before the hurricane are scattered and
waiting to return to begin again. Reports of looting, shooting and fires are
distressing; but we hold on to faith that order will be quickly restored. What
is most important is that those housed at the LA. Superdome not be forced to
remain in what is clearly an untenable situation. Medical attention and
supplies, food, clothing and transportation out of the City must be provided
them. Repairs of levees and pumps must begin now.

Many Americans know New Orleans primarily as a tourist destination, a playground
of tourists and wealthy businessmen. The fact is that this is one of the
greatest cities this country has known. It is unique in the history of the
nation and through such industries as oil & gas, shipping and transportation and
the growth and spread of jazz and the music culture that has grown out of it,
has provided the backbone for much of what the rest of the world knows and
thinks of as "American." Years ago we were dubbed "the City that Care Forgot," "
Big Easy," "Silver City" not only because we knew how to enjoy life, because we
were and are an open-handed and open-hearted people. New Orleanians the world
over intend nothing less than the salvation of our City. Report that.

I, my Mother and my companion left New Orleans on Sunday afternoon, traveled
through Mississippi and Arkansas, and landed eventually in Shreveport, LA. at
the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel. My brother remained in the City and still has
land-line telephone service and water. Presently, I am able to make but not
receive calls on my cell phone. We are safe and anxious to return to our City.

New Orleanians are a people of unimaginable strength and resilience and New
Orleans will be rebuilt as a great city. I am returning to begin again as soon
as possible. Report that. Tell that to the world again and again.


Brenda Marie Osbey
Poet Laureate
State of Louisiana
3319 Dumaine Street
New Orleans 70119

>
>

I love Michael Wilbon but his words in today's Washington Post are silly and is the type of response someone makes on the otherside of a television set. Well, make it a newspaper. If I'm in New Orleans do I really want to watch the Saints play football right now?
Next week? Giving people football right now is like giving a person a drop of water and not even a bottle. Short-lived joy is very American. We even want short wars. If we would deal with long term problems and solutions maybe the levees wouldn't be breaking.

Do you want to think of a real problem right now? Imagine a second storm hitting the area within 2-3 weeks. Twin storms.

Oil prices - jumping out of windows. The economy looking like a US soldier without a proper protective vest. Go figure.

It's impossible to stop Natural disasters...you can't pull God over and ask to see his ID.

The word was always outside our borders. NO(w) we talk about refugees in New Orleans.
The word slips into our vocabulary like Rwanda and people are seen walking with just what they can carry. Looters everywhere and someone will find even liberals wishing they had guns. So- if people are refugees then look for the nearby states (like nations) to feel the economic impact. More homeless walking around in Houston five months from now. Do you really care if the NO Saints can't play home games this season? Do you really care about home field advantage if your own home is gone?

You look at the pictures coming out of New Orleans and Mississippi and you think about someone doing HooDoo without a manual. Someone F with the elements...and then the levees break and you know somewhere the coffins are floating too. You look around and suddenly you're living with dead people and you wonder why you're living.
You hum something like "Precious Lord" but it's only to yourself. Your neighbor is gone and so is your neighborhood. You think you hear Buddy Bolden playing but you're not sure. Armstrong ain't nothing but an Airport and the planes are grounded like a broken trumpet.

So you're a soldier in Iraq and you want to know what's going on in Mississippi - you have family and love ones there. And suddenly you see pictures on the news and it reminds you of the war -but it's home and you can't tell the difference when you go out on patrol, except the people are speaking Arabic and you're waiting for someone to tell you in English that your family is OK...and you want to let them know that you're alive too, for this day and maybe tomorrow and maybe someone will connect the dots and you'll live a long life and tell your grandchildren about what happened in 2005.

Pass the guitar...this is going to be a long blues. No more vacations for the President.

Busboys and Poets was packed this evening. Folks came to listen to David Zirin and Etan Thomas (Washington Wizards). Good to hear people discussing poetry and politics.
I enjoyed Etan's poems. It was the first time I heard him read. Zirin is the author of WHAT'S MY NAME FOOL! SPORTS AND RESISTANCE IN THE UNITED STATES.
In the audience were several SNCC people. This resulted in a good Q&A exchange.
It looks like "progressives" have a place to call their own. It was good to see a nice mixture of age and race.

Just before going to the program, I walked over to the U Street Starbucks and purchased the new CD by Herbie Hancock -POSSIBILITIES. Night music for tonight.
With all the coffee being sold by Starbucks I expected better graphics/design on the CD. Well - let me turn my ears on. I'll report back.

I received this note from the poet Brenda-Marie Osbey:

Dear Ethelbert,

Thanks for checking in with me. I'm fine. James drove my Mother and me out on Sunday afternoon. Aftr much tooling about Arkansas and Mississippi, we've settled for now in Shreveport, LA at the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel. Don't have a laptop or notebook computer, just hotel business center access. Have no idea where we'll head from here. Brought only a couple of days worth of stuff. Thanks so much for looking out for me. Tell everybody I'm out and okay. Will try to keep in touch, love.

Very sad to see the developments in New Orleans and parts of Mississippi. I've been trying to get in touch with friends. This is when the blues singer stands on a hill and simply wails and sings about the ways things are lost and gone. Levees breaking and the dead can't swim no more. A woman on a roof and not a man in sight.

I'm thinking about Brenda-Marie, Jerry W, Kalamu, Mona Lisa and so many others. Life, homes and possessions...

I thought God had given us the rainbow sign, no more water...

Information on Gloria Oden's last book:

If you want to order APPEARANCES, you can get it by
going to www.sarupress.org and ordering from our
distributor www.spdbooks.org at the foot of our home
page.

You also can simply send a check or money order made
out to SARU PRESS INTERNATIONAL to:

SARU
1169 Market St. Rm. 137
San Francisco, CA 94103-1521

Thanks.

Ryu Makoto
SARU

OK 800 E Notes. This is 801.
The new issue of Black Issues Book Review is out. Why is Serena and Venus on the cover? Inside there are good profiles of Calvin Reid, Howard Dodson and John Hope Franklin. Hmmn. When you think of books do you think tennis first? Please, don't get me started...

I've been bringing old albums up from the basement...Rolling Stones last night.

I just found out from Remica (Rem Rem) that Essence magazine published one of my poems. I'll check it out the next time I'm in the Safeway.

Wynton Marsalis will be playing at the 2nd Annual Silver Spring Jazz Festival, Saturday, September 10th in the new Downtown Silver Spring Jazz Festival. He perfoms at 8:30 P.M.

"What is sadder than a griot whose village
has been displaced?
- Reuben Jackson

>Walt Whitman's LEAVES OF GRASS: The Sesquicentennial Symposium
>September 22-24, 2005, Ewing, NJ Directed by David Haven Blake and
>Michael Robertson
>
>Hosted by The College of New Jersey, this three-day event celebrates the
>150th anniversary of LEAVES OF GRASS with scholarly panels, poetry
>readings, an art exhibition, a one-man play, and a performance of Fred
>Hersch's jazz composition LEAVES OF GRASS. Drawing speakers from
>literature, cultural studies, political theory, gender studies, and art
>history, the symposium will explore such topics as Whitman in the 19th
>Century, Whitman and the Arts, and Whitman and the World.
>
>All sessions will be held at The College of New Jersey. The College is
>conveniently located in Ewing, NJ, midway between Princeton and Trenton.
>There is easy access to I-95, the NJ Turnpike, and Amtrak and NJ Transit
>railway stations.
>
>Speakers include Sherman Alexie (Seattle, WA), Anita Anantharam (The
>College of New Jersey), Benjamin Barber (Maryland/ The Democracy
>Collaborative), Daphne A. Brooks (Princeton), Lawrence Buell (Harvard),
>Wai Chee Dimock (Yale), Betsy Erkkila (Northwestern), Ed Folsom (Iowa),
>Janet Gray (The College of New Jersey), Kirsten Silva Gruesz (UC, Santa
>Cruz), Matthea Harvey (Brooklyn, NY), David Lehman (New School), James
>Longenbach (Rochester), Meredith L. McGill (Rutgers), Angela Miller
>(Washington University), Kenneth Price (Nebraska), Michael Warner
>(Rutgers), and Ivy Wilson (Notre Dame).
>
>On Friday, September 23rd at 8 pm, The Fred Hersch Ensemble will be
>performing Hersch's jazz composition LEAVES OF GRASS.
>
>All events on Thursday September 22 are free and open to the public.
>
>General Registration for the Friday and Saturday sessions is $50. One-day
>registration (for either the Friday or Saturday session) is $25. Although
>on-site registration will be available, we strongly encourage advance
>registration and meal purchases, which must be postmarked by September 6,
>2005.
>
>For information and registration, see www.tcnj.edu/~whitman.
>
>The program is made possible in part by a grant from the New Jersey
>Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for
>the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations in
>this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment
>for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.
>
>
>David Blake
>Department of English
>The College of New Jersey
>blake@tcnj.edu

New book coming out late this year:

The Oxford Book of African American Poetry by Arnold Rampersad (editor)
December 2005. 350 pages. Oxford University Press.

I read Oden's THE TIE THAT BINDS last night and found it to be a wonderful narrative poem. I love her description of her father and the black church. Her father's parsonage was in Yonkers, N.Y. Oden writes about her childhood in a way that is instructional to contemporary poets.

It's funny how quickly one's desk can fill with stuff to do. I'm amazed by the number of manuscripts that jump on my desk and start to dance.

I had some correspondence with the poet Gloria Oden the last two days. I didn't know she was still living. She is 82. Hopefully, folks will give her work more attention. I remember meeting her at the Folger Shakespeare Library back in the 1970s. Yesterday I pulled her book THE TIE THAT BINDS off the shelf in the Resource Center.

I had a work-study student putting Dolores Kendrick's file in order. So much to do.

OK the Herbie Hancock CD should be on sale today at Starbucks. Send reviews.

Early morning and I'm listening to Issac Hayes. I'll bring some more oldies up from the basement later today.

A new season begins at Howard today. Not a busy week for me...just a few meetings.

How many soldiers trying to stay alive another week...counting days until they can return home. On Saturday I talked with a friend whose son has just returned from Iraq. She was talking with such relief that we could have been in church taking Holy Communion and standing next to Jesus. She was so happy to have her son back. I remember walking around Iraq back in the 1980s when missles were being sent from Iran into Baghdad. After a bomb fell next to the hotel I was staying at I thought about the irony of being born in the Bronx and dying in Baghdad. Too many Bs. Bombs too.

PROBE POEM

Do you have a tattoo
somewhere I should
know about?


E. Ethelbert Miller

Well I'm back from the ball park. The Nats lost again. :-(
But I did catch a foul ball off the bat of Jose Guillen...only the second baseball I've ever caught. The first time was 1965 in Yankee Stadium.
You know I'll find a way to sneak this fact into the second memoir. :-)

Ichiro is hitting below .300. Not good. No batting title this year. :-(

For Wilson in August

You notice, you feel, you know, there is a slight chill
in the air. It’s when you open the door or go to close the window in late August. The sun reaching for its hat as if to go. Where? You turn back into the house for a sweater. You need long sleeves for just the morning. And this is how I want to remember- everything. Morning. The two of us standing near a fence talking about baseball – the old Negro league. You tell me the good life is when the seasons change and the work is done. I smile thinking about Cool Papa Bell sliding into bed before the lights go out.


E. Ethelbert Miller

Muse2Muse was sweet. That's a word my friend Susan added to my vocabulary. Wendy Reiger should be elected First Lady of Poetry for the DC area. She did an excellent job reading poems by Irish poets,and talking about what poetry means to her life.
What Wendy does is promote the genre - and she is not a writer. She's like Moyers and we need more Moyers. Folks who love poetry and read it and breathe it into the souls of others. Oh, and there was Andy and his BusBoy& Poets staff just being angels and getting everything in order. Maybe we can take a negative term like Ground Zero and make it positive. Busboys is GZ for me. It's the place you want to go and don't want to leave. Things will be kicking open on Wednesday...show your face in the place. Thanks Wendy! Thanks Andy Man!

Suggested reading: HOW TO READ A POEM AND FALL IN LOVE WITH POETRY
by Edward Hirsch

Tomorrow I'm heading out to the ballpark to see the Nationals play the Cards.

I received the latest issue of The American Poetry Review - interview with Liam Rector in it.

I went down into the basement and pulled a couple of old albums to play tonight:
Steel Pulse, Isaac Hayes, Carole King,Bob Marley,and Walter Jackson - remember Jackson?

The new Furious Flower II - DVD is out. I have no idea what happened to E. Ethelbert Miller. He was not included. He must be on the colored DVD. There are black poets and colored poets - right?

Word back from my agent today. She loves the memoir excerpt that I sent to her. I hope to write a book that will move beyond FATHERING WORDS in terms of structure and style. More words to come.

Arthur Ashe stamp will be unveiled today. 37-cent stamp.
Ashe is the first African American man to win the United States Open, the Australian Open and Wimbledon. He died in 1993.

Whoaaa Teddy. I didn't know Ted Williams's mother was Mexican. See NY Times yesterday - Sports section.
Now what about Babe Ruth again? OK...let's not spread rumors on the E-Notes.

Hey, Starbucks! August 30th they will release a new CD by Herbie Hancock: Herbie Hancock Possibilities. Herbie has surrounded himself with good friends - Paul Simon, Santana, Annie Lennox and others.

Be sure to check the Library of Congress Concerts this season...www.loc.gov
I want to attend some of the Jazz & Soul Film Series at the Mary Pickford Theater, from October 17 - December 19, 2005.

August Wilson should be given the Nobel Prize this year.

Before coming home last night I went into Busboys & Poets (14th & V Street). The space is awesome.
Program today at 1PM with Wendy Reiger. Come hear poetry...come have fun with Wendy and me.


I walked pass my son's room in the early morning hours. He had taken down his large Michael Jordan poster. End of an era. Good to see my son getting himself in shape for his first year of college ball. On to Widener U for him.
My daughter is getting ready to take her LSATs. She will be running in the Marine Marathon this year. Go Jazz.

Well, I hope to get back into doing more poetry readings outside of DC during the next few months. Just a shoutout to folks in Maine, California and Washington State...send invite - will travel. I have upcoming talks on Langston Hughes in Fresno, Houston and Kansas City.

Nothing else to say...no more words left:


Playwright August Wilson Has Liver Cancer



Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson has been diagnosed with liver cancer and told a newspaper in his native Pittsburgh that he is dying.



Wilson, 60, who lives in Seattle, was diagnosed with the ailment in June.



"It's not like poker, you can't throw your hand in," Wilson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story published Friday. "I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready."



Wilson has recently been completing his 10-play cycle chronicling the black experience in 20th-century America — one play for each decade.



Two plays in the cycle, "Fences" and "The Piano Lesson," earned Pulitzer Prizes. The 10th play, "Radio Golf," is now running at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.



Wilson's personal assistant, Deanna Levitin, told The Seattle Times until very recently, Wilson was working on rewrites of "Radio Golf," and that people close to him remain optimistic.



"One of the things I'm proudest of in my career is producing so much of August's work here," Seattle Repertory Theater managing director Benjamin Moore said. "I'm going to believe that since August is such a feisty guy, he'll meet this health challenge like he's met the challenge of writing an extraordinary cultural history."



Wilson has lived in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood since 1990. He and his wife, Constant Romero, a costume designer he married in 1994, have a daughter, Azula. Wilson also has a daughter from an earlier marriage.



"He's taking (the cancer) very well, with a lot of strength and determination," his wife told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "It's so hard when an illness falls on you. He has so many plans for working."



The Pittsburgh newspaper said doctors had recommended drug therapy followed by a liver transplant, but the disease proved too far advanced. Wilson said his physicians told him then that he had three to five months to live.

Wesley Clark in his Washington Post Op-ed piece (today) mentions the idea of recruiting ten thousand Arab Americans with full language proficiency to help assist the military as interpreters. Why not also extend the invitation to people from Tanzania and Sudan (who might also speak Arabic)? There are also many African Americans who speak Arabic as a result of embracing Islam. It's not just about speaking the language but also opening the doors to peace in the region by getting more people involved. We shouldn't need a war to highlight the importance of speaking another language. Language skills should be pushed from day 1 in inner city schools. New charter schools should focus not on just teaching kids, Spanish and French but also Korean and Chinese. OK...let me stop, if I keep going I'll be having young kids translating Neruda before the school doors open.

Here is the link to the June Jordan material I recently gave to the University of Minnesota:

http://special.lib.umn.edu/rare/givens/search.html

Provisions Library is looking for a Development and Communications Intern to assist there Director of Development and Communications with grant research, event coordination, Membership outreach and management, press outreach and related activities for the fall semester. They are looking for someone with strong writing skills and an interest in public relations and nonprofit management. The ideal candidate would be available 12-18 hours a week. They are looking for someone who is motivated and self-managed who is interested in Provisions' mission to amplify voices that challenge and redefine the mainstream, exploring the intersection of the arts and social change. Interested candidates should submit a resume, writing sample and personal email/cover letter to the address below:
1611 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 2nd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009
202 232-0304
www.provisionslibrary.org

So Phil Mickelson is on the cover of Sports Illustrated and it's says THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE. Hmmm
So who is Tiger Woods? GOD'S CHOICE?

"The first violin concerto that I even heard was the Mendelssohn violin concerto, performed by Joseph Zegetti. The second violin concerto that I heard was Beethoven, performed by Jascha Heifetz. The third violin concerto that I heard played was the Tchaikovsky, performed by a female, Erica Morini. And so these were all concertos that, in my tender years, were far out of my reach, but were something that I always wanted to perform. When I was 17, my Russian Jewish violin teacher started me with Mendelssohn."
- Minister Louis Farrakhan
Interview in THE FINAL CALL, August 16, 2005

And did you know Fidel played baseball?

Sad to hear about Walter Reed closing. The place is just a few blocks from my house.
Now the neighborhood is certain to change. I hope there are no more condos coming.
My suggestion is to turn the place into an Arts and Humanities Complex. A place where even the poet laureate could reside. It would be a nice location to place NEA and NEH. Visiting international artists could stay there too. Maybe change the name of the place from Reed to Read.

Folks are talking about the price of gas. Start saving money for those "high" heating bills that will be coming this winter. I had a $500 heating bill one month - that's insane. How are our seniors going to cope with that? Hey - I'm almost a senior. Yipes.

Oh...what is Curt Schilling running for? VP on the Republican ticket in the next election? Win a World Series and you can run a country. Is this the reason he decided to do relief pitching?

Though European nations shipped millions of slaves from Africa over four centuries, archaeologists estimate that fewer than 10 slave shipwrecks have been found worldwide.

from New York Times article "Tracing a Mutiny by Slaves Off South Africa in 1766."
by Sharon LaFraniere.

One slave ship, the Henrietta Marie was discovered in 1972. It is now housed at the Maritime Heritage Society's Museum. The ship sank 35 miles off Key West around 1700.

My next Muse to Muse program is this Saturday. It's Wendy & Me at 1 PM.
Wendy Rieger (NBC News Anchor) will be reading and talking about Irish poetry at BusBoys & Poets (14th and V Street, NW). This can also be a chance to visit what's going to be a cultural hot spot for DC.
For additional info checkout Muse to Muse on my website: www.eethelbertmiller.com

Amy Stolls is reading at American University on September 28th at 8 PM. School of International Service Building, SIS Lounge.
Amy is a literature specialist at NEA. Her new novel is PALMS TO THE GROUND.

So maybe all we really need to do is change the name of the Defense Department back to Department of War. Hmmmm.

Sad to hear that story about Dwight Gooden. :-(
Brock Peters gone...

What's with the P O at 14th and T Street, NW? The line was so long I read three sections of the newspaper this morning.

Much of the day spent at the Community Foundation working with a Creative Communities Initiative team.

Do you remember when Pat Robertson was a serious candidate for Prez? Whoaa...Thank the Lord for not making that miracle happen.
So now Hugo is just a big as Fidel? Look for Muslims to suddenly appear in South America in a few weeks. Call it LatinArabia?


Follow The Amazing SpiderMan cartoon. Parker just took a full-time job with the newspaper and now needs a physical so he can qualify for health insurance. Hmmm
Will he test positive for steroids? Will Spiderman lie in order to get a job?

So the Mayor of DC has a blog too: mayor.dc.gov

So if Bush apologized for making a mistake about the war tomorrow would that change anything? I doubt it. The idea of "immediate" withdrawal is what? Months? A year?
Is troop reduction withdrawal? Let's start talking specifics...

In today's Washington Post, Gary Hart mentioned about the "public trust must be earned." Sounds good but what does that really mean?

I still feel the serious opposition to the war must begin to emerge within the Republican Party. Someone has to speak up. It has to be a person who is not going to be seen as antiwar? What does antiwar mean? Who would really want to be for war?
It's important to strip the language bare. What are we really talking about here?

Why does the media make Cindy Sheehan sound crazy? Can anyone tell me her son's name and when and where he was killed? I wish the media would supply this info on a regular basis. When you read the newspaper stories they often have a high school tone. Somebody writing something for a grade and doing a candybar amount of research.

So Hugo is now the new guy to watch?
We must be getting ready for the fall television series. 24hours. The clock is ticking and Pat is talking to Jack. Is this a rerun?

How can people pray to God and want to kill someone at the same time? What would Jesus say?

Do we plan to send troops to South America next?

Jennifer Nelson is putting together another terrific season with the African Continuum Theatre Company (ACTCo).
Things begin on September 15th with I HAVE BEFORE ME A REMARKABLE DOCUMENT GIVEN TO ME BY A YOUNG LADY FROM RWANDA by Sonja Linden. Directed by KenYatta Rogers
Featuring Deidra Starnes and Michael Glenn.

Subscribe to ACTCo: www.africancontinuumtheatre.com

OK they are also doing A RAISIN IN THE SUN (next May) but I won't say anything. Mum's the word for me. I wish folks would do some of Hansberry's other work.

Big things happening at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Look for this place to "hold up" the culture of the city soon. Nelson is a genius and a lady builder as good as Booker T.

I have an upcoming reading at the Nora School (955 Sligo Avenue, SilverSpring, MD) on September 8th at 7:30 PM. It's a celebration of the POETIC VOICES WITHOUT BORDERS anthology that was recently published by Gival Press. Other poets reading are: Karren Alenier, Christopher Conlon, Robert Giron, Peter Klappert and Gregg Shapiro.

A very good article on health care is in the latest issue of THE NEW YORKER (August 29th) by Malcolm Gladwell.

Two short excerpts:

People without health insurance have bad teeth because, if you're paying for everything out of your own pocket, going to the dentist for a checkup seems like a luxury. It isn't, of course. The loss of teeth makes eating fresh fruits and vegetables difficult, and a diet heavy in soft, processed foods exacerbates more serious health problems, like diabetes. The pain of tooth decay leads many people to use alcohol as a salve. And those struggling to get ahead in the job market quickly find that the unsightliness of bad teeth, and the self-consciouness that results, can become a major barrier. If your teeth are bay, you're not going to get a job as a receptionist,say, or a cashier. You're going to be put in the back somewhere, far from the public eye.


The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is unpaid medical bills. Half of the uninsured owe money to hospitals, and a third are being pursued by collection agencies. Children without health insurance are less likely to receive medical attention for serious injuries, for recurrent ear infections, or for asthma.


I just received a beauitful picture of Danticat's beautiful baby. Congrats Lady E.

Breakfast with Browning (Sarah) at the Mocha Hut this morning. She is busy as usual.
Nice to break bread with her now and then.

This morning I packed a few more items about June Jordan to send to the Givens Collection at the University of Minnesota. I keep finding things...

Walking around campus,I discover the ROTC units out in full strength - even an Air Force honor guard. When I arrived at HU in 1968 I was a member of the first class in which ROTC was not in formal vogue. Times change and new wars come and ?

It feels good working on my own stuff. I'm sending new poems out. Tomorrow I'm sending an excerpt of my second memoir out to an agent.

"You enter the path of transformation when you begin to practice the things you pronounce."
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Elizabeth Alexander's new book is out from Graywolf Press. The title is AMERICAN SUBLIME.
It sells for $14.

Good News:
Michaelle Jean will become Canada's next Governor-General on October 1st. The 48-year old Haitian born Jean will replace Adrienne Clarkson. Jean is a former Montreal journalist. She is fluent in five languages: English, French,Spanish, Italian and Haitian Creole. She is married to the documentary filmmaker Jean-Daniel Lafond.

Walter Ray has his first book of poems out. Ray is one of those beautiful seniors who is enjoying retirement and staying creative.
Checkout: DE COLORED SECTION
Order from Xlibris: order@xlibris.com
Ray came by the Resource Center this morning and we talked about how to get his book out to folks.

As we take our children back to school in a few weeks,remember the people of Beslan.
Prayers and flowers.

The Suzanne Marrs biography of Eudora Welty is out from Harcourt selling at $28. I met Suzanne at the White House at one of those Laura Bush gatherings. Marrs teaches English at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

The Newseum and the National Archives present:
Blogging: Free Press for All or Free-for-All?
Thursday, September 22, 2005 7PM
William G. McGowan Theater at the National Archives.

I went out to the Wheaton Plaza in Maryland with my son and daughter. We spent $$ on stuff for my son. Whatever happened to the one footlocker? I took so few things when I left for college in 1968. It could have all been placed on an I-Pod. Sweet. Talking about I-Pods - why did Apple take out all those ads in the South Station in Boston? I felt I was eating my lunch under the eye of Big Brother or Eye-Pod.

Things to remember...there are 2 wars. Not one but two: Iraq and Afghanistan. We need a good peace plan for both nations. We also might be witnessing new geographical boundaries developing and maybe new nations or federations created.
That might be the case in Iraq. The Kurds, Sunni and Shites might walk backwards into dividing the country into new shapes. Wars often do this.

It's strange how after 10 or 15 years folks might be sitting around drinking coffee or tea right where bombs were exploding. People will be talking about the war the way some of us remember Watts. Go figure. It's sad to see the human loss. Sons and daughters falling in battle. Which bring up the name Cindy Sheehan. We stand around waiting for someone to begin counting the grains of sand before the beach is filled with too many bodies to count. The President probably got two schools of advice on how to handle the PR around this case. Should he meet with Cindy? One embrace won't change anything except show the human face of Bush. If he meets with her for 5 minutes then it's just for show. If he meets with her for 1-2 hours, what about other families? If I was President I would meet with Cindy but it would be at her home, around her dinner table, without the media. It would be a private dinner with prayers for all our love ones. Is this asking too much?

I love the cover of the new issue of Poets & Writers - James Baldwin looking like an African elder.

One of the people in my P-Town workshop recommended the music of Leela James and Jaguar Wright.
Two films that were mentioned during our workshop were RABBIT PROOF FENCE and GATHERING OF RAGE.

Here are a couple of lines from THE END OF BEING KNOWN by Michael Klein that made me stop and think:

"Our own stories are the ones that are most mysterious to us..."

Klein quotes Beckett- "The day you die is just like any other day except it's shorter."

"...sex was still improvisational as jazz."

"My penis hadn't tried to make a journey to the heart of another person through the tunnel leading into them."

"Truth is relative is really just an homage to memory."

"I can't call it loneliness anymore. I don't know what to call this thing I have."

Much drama heading back to DC from Provincetown. I almost got on the wrong train.
I had to run to catch the Amtrak departing at 4:40PM. I didn't get into DC until 12:30 AM (Sunday).

On the train I read WALKING TO MARTHA'S VINEYARD by Franz Wright. Only a few things I really enjoyed:

How does one go
about dying?
Who on earth
is going to teach me-
The world
is filled with people
who have never died


I did like the poems "Fathers" "Abandoned Letter" "The New Jerusalem"

Franz has a number of lines that stick to your tongue:

I don't want to sleep with you
I want to wake up with you...


AND

I'm writing to you
all the time, I am writing

with both hands,
day and night.


I also read a few pages of Mark Doty's memoir HEAVEN'S COAST.

On the train I spent time thinking about Provincetown. Michael Klein in his memoir called it a Gay Ghetto. It was interesting being a black straight male and checking the vibes. There were a couple of "incidents" that pushed a nerve. Some of it from straight white people who just can't accept blackness and I refuse to call it "my" costume. One's blackness can also be attractive to others who see you as a type and not an individual. So what else is new? I was upset about a black lesbian woman who didn't want anyone to help her with her luggage. She kept saying she didn't need help with her bags when it was obvious she did. A white guy attempted to help her and she refused. I didn't even want to go the route of helping a sister because it was obvious she would see the male in me and not the kindness. So what I'm saying here is that I didn't feel that free in P-Town. I am happy that folks have a place. I did feel folks struggling with loneliness and happy to have a few close friends, a time and place to laugh and collect memories. It was also good to see old gay couples hanging out and talking about how often they have been returning to a community that gives them back a carress.
Not easy in this world and times.

I did enjoy my Workshop and the six people who participated. I hope to stay in touch with all of them. I do feel my workshop days are ending. I want to do other things.
The focus the next four years will be on writing and paying bills. It's like living and being black. Is there anything else I should be doing?

My next upcoming television show will be an interview with journalist Jonetta Barras. We shoot next month.

I'm listening to Wayna singing "Secret Identity." Thanks Hanah for sending the CD.

Upcomings:

7th Annual Black l.u.v. festival on September 18th
www.blackluvfest.info
The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka
4th and PENN Ave. NW

PEN/Faulkner Gala
Theme: Lost & Found
Stanley Crouch, Ha Jin, Tayari Jones, Richard McCann, Rick Moody, Maxine Hong Kingston et. al.
Monday, September 26th
Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capitol Street, SE

Thelonious Monk International Jazz Guitar Competition and Gala Concert
Monday, September 19th
7:30 PM
The Eisenhower Theater
The John Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.


Vermont Studio Center
20th Anniversary Benefit Auction
September 7, 2005
Sotheby's
72nd & York
New York City
www.vermontstudiocenter.org

My Provincetown workshop on writing the political poem is going well. Here are some of the questions we have been discussing:

1. What comes to mind when you hear the term political poem?
2. What makes a poem political?
3. Why do some political poems "work" and others don't?

Key terms we defined in order to understand things:
Political
Ideology
Protest
Art
Poem

I circulated a list of 10 ways to define a political poem.
(You will have to subscribe to E-Notes in order to obtain this information)

During each workshop session we discussed one of my handouts. We've been looking at essays by Carolyn Forche and Adrienne Rich, as well as poems by Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, June Jordan and Billy Collins. We workshop the work of two people a day. There are six people in the group. Everyone has been having a good time. Notepads are filling up with information.

Oh, folks did have to answer the following questions in our first meeting:

1. Are you a member of any social or political organization?
2. How would you define yourself politically?


No, folks did not raise their hands and take a pledge.

Try Ethos water. Money goes to the Ethos Water Fund
Help donate 1 million to support humanitarian water projects.
www.ethoswater.com

I purchased a bottle in Union Station (at the Starbucks) before I boarded the train to Boston.

Hi, remember me? I'm still in Provincetown teaching a workshop. Things are going well. It's so much fun doing a workshop by myself. Whew...
I needed that change; especially after my last Bennington tour.
I'm back to having fun again. Six people in my class. We discussed an essay by Carolyn Forche today. Tomorrow we will be looking at work that people have made copies of for the group. I've printed out a number of handouts...so folks will have a good number of things to carry back after Friday.
I'll be giving a poetry reading tomorrow evening. I have my afternoons free...so that's good. I read the New York Times every morning...so what else do I need? :-)

More to report - later this week. It's feels so good to chill...

Report from the front is that the Nationals are playing better...

Ichiro has 3 hits last night!

Now, all I need is to write a poem.

I almost forgot about the Baseball God (BG). Maybe the BG (Baseball Game) will look down on the Nationals and bless them. Maybe Atlanta will suddenly fold or wilt from the August heat and we get the pennant race. Suddenly the Nats are not going for the wild Card but for the division title. Yep, somewhere that will begin to happen and folks will turn to their televisions and shake their heads. A young kid might come up from the minors and have that Robert Redford look in his eyes; he might put a team on his back for just a few weeks. You'll never hear about the guy again. Or maybe you're just watching one game and there is that "miracle" play in which an entire team and season turns around. All of a sudden a team gets hot and they can't lose. Balls are finding eyes like a freed hostage.

The Nation magazine has a very good MIDEAST Forum in their DoubleIssue: August 15/22.
Good insightful comments about the war and where it's going by Helena Cobban, Juan Cole, Nir Rosen, and Shibley Telhami.

I wonder what John Ashcroft is doing? Michael Jackson? Mike Tyson? Gerald Ford?
Hot days in August and we sit around thinking about the cool days and ways. Can you imagine Ford playing golf with Tiger Woods? Remember when folks walked around with bandaids on their heads. He He Oh...the good days - when a president could get a pardon, and my neighbor would look out her window and call me a nice colored boy.

It's Friday night...what are all the I-POD girls doing? Are they listening to Ringo?

T. Owens should just do reality television...maybe host his own show. The Eagles would be fools to bring the guy back. Why should Donovan throw the ball to him.
Let's face it Owens is really just an OK receiver. Is Tom Cruise this guy's agent?

I'm still waiting for MLB to reveal that some star pitcher has been taking steroids.
I find it strange that all the guys being mentioned are hitters. We all know that pitchers always like to have an edge. Right? So the logic would be that a name is going to be mentioned between now and next season.

If MLB won't kick folks out, look for fans to boo for a few games and then forget.
The key issue is whether these guys should be elected into the Hall of Fame.That's the tough one. What would Pete Rose do?

Denise took me to all the bases I needed to touch this morning. Post Office, Bank, King Library, and Union Station.

I showed her The Regent, a nice Thai restuarant on 1910 18th Street. Sad to see the place empty around 12 Noon. We ate where everyone else was eating, across the street at Lauriol Plaza. I like to sit at a table near the machine where you can see the corn chips coming out.

Later I sat over at the Mocha Hut on U Street. I read a couple of newspapers. I also took a look at a children's book sent to me from some folks down in Orlando, Florida.
Good Newz Dudez, Inc. The book is WHEN I LEARN HOW TO READ by Nancy Cyann. A book for 3-7 year olds. GND Press: 407 658-0868.

Save the date:
29th Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards
Wednesday, October 19th 2005
National Press Club
Honors given to Judge Juan Guzman & Barrios Unidos.
www.ips-dc.org

Was that Wilson hitting a homerun for the Nats yesterday when it really didn't matter? Well...no division, no wild card...no fans? The real support for baseball in DC will show when the team is losing. It's important that folks embrace the Nats the way cities hold dear the Cubs, Red Sox and those old Amazin Mets.

I completed all my Bennington work. I felt like Fred Douglass writing the last paragraph to his Narrative.

Now,it's off to Provincetown. I decided to take the train - make this my summer journey. I'll call a few friends when I make it to Boston.

I'm throwing into my bag James Smethurst's book on The Black Arts Movement. On the ride North I'll read much of the material for my workshop. I have six students.
A couple of people I already know...so it should be more a chance to relax and share ideas and resources.

The workshop focus is on writing the political poem. I'm simply putting down my own ideas and sharing more my experiences with folks. I also feel blessed to have been around June Jordan. June is still my model for what a writer should be doing - especially with our nation at War.

I think it's important to move beyond simply opposing the Bush Administration into the much larger issues of global peace. It's not just the human destruction but also the destruction to our planet - the enviornment. It not about being anti-American but trying to organize things that are positive and loving. The struggle is to always improve insitutions and conditions around the world. Even in small ways the artist, the poet must find ways to do good. We must "plant" the good and be sure it grows. We embrace the light and all things that are YES in the world.

I don't want to create work that harms or hates. I do accept the responsibility of being a witness...To always speak the truth to the people. My writing, my life.

Only a few more places I want to travel to in the world. I want to make it to Turkey...

This morning my wife and I went down to the Giant Supermarket next to the Tivoli Theater.It was our first time there. If you want to know how the city is changing just enter some of these new stores. A row of wines??
Do you remember when the neighbors drank Bud and sat on the corners? In the early morning hours of rushhour you can stand on corners and no longer see Black people.
It's like the play- Day of Absence. You look in four directions and then you look at yourself and count yourself and the number is one.
Maybe we are invisible? Maybe everyone is living in basements under the Condos with lightbulbs in the ceiling. Yes, Ellison - explain this to me? I'll think twice about buying a yam at the Giant. Oh, I hear it's the same way in Harlem when you get off the A-Train. Maybe Garvey returned and sold folks tickets to the Black Star Line...maybe I better get down to SW and see what's going on. Is the boat out there? Is PG County the new Middle Passage? Or is it just a new township and I should pull my Free Nelson Mandela T-shirt from the back of the drawer...

Great guy Andy Shallal is opening his new space - Busboys & Poets.
Check it: www.busboysandpoets.com

I can't wait.

I've been listening to Jan Garbarek/The Hilliard Ensembe - Officium, the last two days. Good music for the mind and soul.

I'm planning on doing some new postcards with my friend Julia Jones in Florida. We did some nice stuff back in the 1990s. Ah...those were the good old days.

Yesterday,Katy Otto (Provisions Library) gave me a copy of her book WITH SUNLIGHT INTERFERING. This woman also plays drums. Her group is Del Cielo: www.delcielorock.com

Today is Reetika Vazirani's birthday.
Friendship is Forever!
I spoke with her Mom this morning...love continues, love endures.

Here is the link to information about my next program. I hope you will attend. Tell friends and lovers: www.eethelbertmiller.com/muse/wendy.html

THE FATE OF AFRICA: A History of 50 Years of Independence by Martin Meredith received a good review in the New York Times today. This is a big book - 752 pages.
A survey of what's been happening on the continent. Price: $35.

With no hitting the Nationals could be in last place in the NL Eastern Division by the end of the week. Houston has good pitching. Clemens, Oswalt and Pett don't give folks too many runs. Losing to Houston will also knock the Nationals out of the wildcard chase. This is a key week.

So what would Bert do? The Nationals have trouble putting 2 hits together. I suggest these guys begin to steal more bases. If someone gets on by a walk, they have to get a green light to steal. No hit and run...just plain out get to second base. Fast runners will have to attempt to steal 3rd base. I guy like Guzman gets my green light if he makes it to second. Of course Guzman had trouble this year trying to get to first. Anyway, I like the guy and he is hitting much better the last few games.

Please, please don't play Preston Wilson for the rest of the season. This guy is terrible and he looks lost out in LF. Is this Mookie's nephew? Well, I have family too. Oh, and why is Cepicky back? Can Bennett really catch or is he just stopping the ball. Can this guy throw any runners out?

I love Wilkerson in CF. How many games has this guy saved this year with his glove?
The Nationals is Guillen's team and the guy is wounded. The team will go nowhere without him. Patterson is one of the best pitchers in baseball right now.
OK Frank here is a batting order:

1.Church
2.Castilla
3.N.Johnson
4.Wilkerson
5.Carroll
6.Guzman
7.Cepicky
8.Benett
9 -pitcher

Anything you get from the 6-9 hitters is gravy. If the team is going to score runs it's going to be done with the 1-5 hitters.

This team should set a goal of 5 runs a game. If the pitching can stay strong they will win. No room for errors in the field.

The team needs one good middle relief pitcher. Find one good guy who can give you 2-3 innings. Keep the rest of the guys in the bullpen playing catch. Cordero owns the 9th. Only use him when your ahead, not tied.

It all started with Monroe walking over that heat vent and her dress blowing upwards.
That was a metaphor of things to come.

A busy week for me. Sorry to learn about PJ leaving...Cancer taking so many of us.
I didn't watch ABC News all the time but did like the way Jennings would tilt his head after something really silly in the news. It was my introduction to how one could be objective and political- and be professional about it.

We are seeing the end of an era in television. Can you imagine being introduced to Jennings, and Rather on your cellphone? Not the same.
The new communication outlets gives us the news without "filters" or anchors. We can also make our own news. One can say something bizarre in a blog and have it kick the world in the head. Whew...who would want to do that? Still we live in a world where folks want to carry backpacks with bombs and not books.

In today's Washington Post Book World, poet Robert Pinsky looks at two books in his Poet's Choice column:

WEDDING DAY by Dana Levin and HOW WE SLEEP ON THE NIGHTS WE DON'T MAKE LOVE by E. Ethelbert Miller.
Pinsky writes about my poem "Rosa Parks Dreams."

There is a good profile of V.S. Naipual in today's New York Times Book Review.
It's by Rachel Donadio. Check It!
Naipual is one of those writers we need to return to as our world continues to change.

"I have always moved by intuition alone. I have no system, literary or political. I have no guiding political idea."
- V.S. Naipaul


This weekend was the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Key provisions of the Act expire in 2007. Look for people to say the Jim Crow- era is over and we don't need protection. Keep the Vote Alive! Every vote counts. Vote in every election. Teach your children about the importance of voting. Always know who or what you are voting for. An uneducated voter can harm the future of a community.
Be wise. Keep your eyes open at the voting booth. Don't let anyone prevent you from voting. Do I sound like Rev. Jackson? Well it's Sunday.


I pulled Paul Muldoon Poems 1968-1998 from the bookshelf. I'll read a couple of pages on my way downtown.

My friend Susan drove into the city around 1PM from Virginia. We sat outside on the front steps of my house looking at her new red truck. I love listening to Susan talk and laugh. The sounds of hills on her tongue. I'm certain we will be the best of friends forever.

So the afternoon was big fun.

Now I'm back at work completing Bennington packets. Everything should be done by Wednesday.

Oh..my Ichiro..oh is hitting .301. Oh...

The home AC unit is working and I'm staying cool. Now what else is going to break and cost me a couple of $$$?

So it was MM and RFK...hmmm. Did we expect Hoffa?

"I have never greeted a student by telling her to go f*** herself and shove her hideous poems up her ass."
- James Wright

James was such a nice fellow, what about you Bert?

New York Times Editorial, August 5, 2005

Nearly 80,000 new blogs are created every day, and there are some 14.2 million in existence already, 55 percent of which remain active. Some 900,000 new blog postings are added every day - a steady increase marked by extraordinary spikes in new postings after incidents like the London bombing. The blogosphere - that is, the virtual realm of blogdom as a whole - doubles in size every five and a half months.


May the force be with us.

I'm busy doing Bennington work this weekend. Susan coming up from VA tomorrow morning.

I'll relax by catching some baseball on television.
AC unit repaired. Whew baby...I was burning and turning blacker. Go figure.

You know you're old when you start enjoying the articles in AARP magazine. Condi on the cover of the latest issue.

The old days:

I have wanted for fifteen years one supreme thing. I have wanted it more than love, health, fame or security. It is world socialism that I want - for I know this alone can banish the miseries of the world I now live in. It will free the factory slaves, the farm drudges, it will set women free, and restore the Negro race to its human rights. I know that the world will be beautiful soon in the sunlight of proletarian brotherhood; meanwhile, the struggle. And I want socialism so much that I accept this fierce, crude struggle as my fate in time; I accept its disciplines and necessities; I become as practical and realistic as possible for me; I want victory.

-Mike Gold " Why I am a Communist (1932)

Recent coup in Mauritania. Former President Taya had jailed many Islamic activists and members of the army that attempted to overthrow him in 2003.
Look for the US to push for increasing aid to Africa. Much of it will be for defense and not combating health issues and feeding people. The focus is to prevent Islamic militants with links to al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Africa. So here we go again maybe building military bases instead of hospitals. Sending Army advisors to poor nations and not doctors.
Oh...Oil was recently discovered off Mauritania's Atlantic coast. Crude should be pumping next year.


The next movie I want to see is "Broken Flowers" with Bill Murray. It you think it's good let me know. Thanks. David Denby reviews it in The New Yorker (August 8 &15).

I worked on my next collection of poems - ON SATURDAYS, I SANTANA WITH YOU. I cut 32 poems from the manuscript. I have a tentative table of contents. I hope to include work on more subject matter. A number of the poems are experimental in terms of language. It's always good to surprise the reader when they turn the page.

Yesterday morning, Rick (Poet Lore) and I visited the Library of Congress and selected photographs to use on future magazine covers. Look for a change from nature and Washingtonian images to a focus on the photographs of famous American poets.
Many thanks to Cheryl in the Photo Division for helping us.

I talked with Julia Galbus (in Indiana) about the interview book we are working on. I also gave her feedback on her Stephen Henderson essay.

Bennington packets coming in...

Good to see the Nationals putting one in the win bracket. They need to have a 10 game win streak in order to get back into the division hunt and wild card chase.
I plan to watch them play the Dodgers on television tonight.

Ichiro back in a slump again. :-( The guy needs a couple of 3/4 hit games.

Meeting with M. Cohen this morning at Savory. Cohen produces the excellent cable program Takoma Coffeehouse.

My buddy Susan will be up to visit from Virginia on Saturday - it will be good to laugh and be silly. Can you believe the summer will be over soon? I just have to make it up to Provincetown next weekend. I'm teaching a workshop on writing political poems. Notes on my desk...Things to Xerox for my students. I'll pull things together on Friday.

Before August closes her eyes I need to start working on my Langston Hughes lectures and a long essay on Ahmos Zu-Bolton. I've been invited out to Missouri to give a keynote talk on Ahmos in November.


OH...and congrats to Jennifer up in Connecticut for getting some of her work published for the first time. Go girl! See you when you return to Howard.

Yes...the cookies are good at the Mocha Hut on U Street. :-) I'll try one of those muffins next. They look good too.

Humanities Profiled update... I plan to interview journalist and writer Jonetta Barras in September. Jonetta is often heard on WAMU radio. I first met her in Columbia Station on Columbia Road back in the 1970s. Her daughter was still playing DoubleDutch inside the womb.

The larger the audience, the more the reading becomes performance. The more the reading becomes performance, the less the poem is the center of attention. The less the poem is the center of attention, the less the poem is heard and understood, so much the less for poetry. And so on.
- Charles Wright

Apology. Apologize.
Everyone is doing it these days.
Let's apologize for slavery.
Let's apologize for the war
Let's apologize for stealing.
Let's apologize for using drugs.
Let's apologize for adultery.
Let's apologize for getting caught.

I saw where wide receiver Randy Moss said he was going to apologize to everyone before the football season started. Moss knows he is going to act the fool after a TD this season. So excuse him now.

OK...I apologize for stealing the cookies that were for my father back in 1958.
I do not apologize for pouring the warm milk down the sink.
I do not apologize for sneaking out of the house to play baseball with Dinky in 1961.
I do not apologize for telling my Italian friends in high school that Willie Mays was better than Joe D.

I am waiting for an apology from JHS 120 in the Bronx for giving me a poor education.
I am waiting for an apology from all the small press magazines that spelled my name
Ethylbert, Eldebert, Ethurbert, Etc, Et, E.

A productive day. FED-EX some material down to NEA. Contacted Widener U to get info for my son, made it to the bank. A letter in support of a friend up for tenure finally in the mail. I also started working on the first Bennington packet to come in.

I spent the rest of the morning talking with Gina Lewis. She is working on a new mural.

I might walk over to the Mocha Hut (on U Street) after work and read for a spell.
I love the hot August days.

So this afternoon after work I ran into Jelani Cobb on U Street and not Langston Hughes or Jean Toomer. Cobb talked about his new book on HipHop coming out soon.
He recently edited the Harold Cruse Reader. JC is one of those young scholars painting the walls that were left undone by earlier race men and women. The guy was always serious. Now what about the rest of us?

I went into the Mocha Hut (1301 U Street,NW) for the first time. Nice place. Not bad for reading the newspaper or a new collection of poems. I'll check it tomorrow and see what the Tuesday crowd looks like.

Talking about new poetry books, I received SUNSTREAMS & SHADOWS by Cicely Rodway in the mail.It's an Africa World Press book. I met Rodway several weeks ago.

Checkout a very good interview with CHUCK D in the August issue of The Progressive magazine. I agree with everything he says.
Was 1988 so long ago?
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.

With the help of Adrienne, I've started making changes to my website. A new poem added today: www. eethelbertmiller.com/poetry/hiphop.html

I had a morning meeting downtown with Marc Raskin (founder of IPS). Much of the discussion was around fundraising. Support our work: www.ips-dc.org

Please place on your calendar the next MUSE TO MUSE program.
I'll be interviewing Wendy Reiger (NBC News anchor)on Saturday, August 27th at 1PM.
Location: Busboys & Poets, 14th & V Street, NW.
Wendy will be reading and talking about contemporary Irish poetry.
This is my third Muse2Muse program. The others were with Melissa Tuckey and Sarah Browning. See my website: www.eethelbertmiller.com
I'll be adding a picture of Wendy in a few days.