The Hurston/Wright Foundation  announces the nominations for the 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards WASHINGTON, D.C. * * * * * * * * June 9, 2014 * * * * * * * * The Hurston/Wright Foundation announces the nominations for the 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. A winner and two finalists in each category will be honored at the 13th Annual Legacy Award Ceremony on Friday, October 24, at the Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C. Wil Haygood, award-winning biographer and journalist and author of the article and book that inspired the film The Butler will serve as master of ceremonies for the awards ceremony.    FICTION The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson (Bloomsbury)  Every Boy Should Have A Man by Preston L. Allen (Akashic)  The Gospel According to Cane by Courttia Newland (Akashic)  The Good Lord Bird by James McBride (Penguin)   See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid (Farrar Straus and Giroux)  We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo ( Little Brown/Reagan Arthur Books)    NONFICTION Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home  by Sheri Booker (Gotham Books/Penguin)  The March on Washington Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones (Norton)  Ebony and Ivy Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of America's Universities by Craig Steven Wilder (Bloomsbury)  Kansas City Lightning by Stanley Crouch (HarperCollins)   The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury)  Searching for Zion The Quest For Home in the African Diasporaby Emily Raboteau (Atlantic Monthly Press)  POETRY Darktown Follies by Amaud Jamaul Johnson (Tupelo Press)  The Cineaste by A. Van Jordan (Norton)  Hemming the Water by Yona Harvey (The Four Way Books)  What We Ask of Flesh by Remica L. Bingham (Etruscan Press)  Silverchest by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)  The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka (Penguin)    The judges for the 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award:   Fiction Tina McElroy Ansa, Dana Johnson and A.J. Verdelle    Nonfiction Amy Alexander, Sheryll Cashin and Fredrick C. Harris    Poetry Teri Cross Davis, Brian Gilmore and Hoke Glover

For More Information Contact: Marita Golden, Interim Executive Director Ten G Street N.E. Suite 710   Washington. D.C. 20002  202.492.1256  |  info@hurstonwright.org www.hurstonwright.org

#60

Your absence is always suffocating.

My desire to see you everyday

has no imitation in nature. There is no

second sunrise or nights as dark as

when you leave.

 - E. Ethelbert Miller

JAZZ LIVES!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/arts/music/a-new-focus-on-eric-dolphy-in-washington-and-montclair.html

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Judy Byron

CONTINENTAL DRIFT Being Here and Being There

June 14- August 17. 2014
American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center

Artist reception - Saturday, June 14th from 6-9 PM

Conversation with the artist -Thursday, July 17th from 6-8PM.

Ahmad Jamal and Sam Hamod Warming Up: Pure Music

  (blues alley, wash, dc in the 90s)

there is a quiet

beauty, the single notes,

then more combinations,

the way he weaves them

into a kind of dream, as he

wanders off into this minor

invention, he Is drifting now

into this sea beyond

his thoughts, into pure music,

that has no beginning

nor end, it just floats

as he glides from this soft

pattern, the creates itself

as one note follows another,

and the harmonies arise,

sun in the morning,

moving through the day,

until he reaches sunset, does

his maghrib prayer, then

gives a soft laugh, says,

“hey hamod, how do u like

that?” he knows, that we

often make real music

from our souls

as we write poems

from our hearts, for

the beauty of what Allah

has given us, just to hear

and feel what it is we do,

for love alone

©  sam hamod, 6.8.14

-- 

The Bev & Bert Show

Yesterday was another day of laughter with BH.  We sat at an outside cafe just before the dark clouds and rain came. Friendship is an umbrella keeping the blues from spoiling one's clothes. 30 years for me and BH.

Photo by Ethelbert

E-Note Person to Watch in 2014

SARAH MASSEY

Sarah runs Massey-Media Com.

Here is a link to her organization:

http://massey-media.com/whoweare/

A VISIT FROM LADY BEDFORD

John Parks took this picture last week of me and photographer Kristin Bedford. Bedford came by my house to share examples of her work. She recently had an opening for an exhibit - The Perfect Picture: Photographs by Kristin Bedford at the Daylight Project Space in Hillsborough, NC. Last year her work was shown on the campus of Duke University.

September 21, 2014: Host a Community Book Club Event with I Am Troy Davis

On September 21, 2011, the state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death despite a compelling case of innocence. To mark the 3-year anniversary of this travesty of justice, and to deepen and widen the discourse about the human impact of the death penalty system, we invite you to participate in a worldwide Community Book Club on September 21, 2014.

We find that people who may be uncertain about their views on the death penalty, and may not want to come to a rally, vigil or other public event, are more willing to attend a small, private gathering to discuss a book they were asked to read. Through hundreds of intimate gatherings across the country and the world, Troy's story will reach and impact thousands of new people.

To host an event, you need only:

1. Invite a group of friends, family and colleagues to read I Am Troy Davis ahead of September 21, 2014. These can be death penalty abolition activists, those who are uncertain about their views about the death penalty, those who support the death penalty, or a combination. (If you are already part of a regularly meeting book club, this can be your September book. Or, it can be any of your friends/colleagues you wish to invite for this one-time event.)

2. Invite that same group of friends, family and colleagues to gather on (or around) September 21 to discuss the book. (This can happen as a potluck dinner at a home, in a coffee shop, in connection with an existing church or synagogue book club, at your local independent book store, etc)

3. Use the I Am Troy Davis Discussion Guide developed by Equal Justice USA, in partnership with Amnesty International USA and the NAACP to facilitate the conversation around the book: 

http://ejusa.org/act/iamtroydavis/discussion-questions

4. We want to keep track of all the book discussions happening around the world! Register your event by emailing Jen Marlowe at donkeysaddle@gmail.com

5. Take photos of your event to be posted on tumblr, linking your event to similar book events that will take place that day all over the world!

Quote of the Day

During the few minutes that they were in the presence of international journalists, Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin did not speak, did not shake hands in fact seemed eager not to encounter each other, much like divorced parents both invited to a child's graduation.

  - Peter Baker, The New York Times

Yard work and basement cleaning yesterday. After brunch in Takoma Park this morning I'll return home and work on the side of the building I call the "Monk's path."

Link to DC Black Theatre Festival (June 20-29, 2014:
www.DCBlackTheatreFestival.com

STATEMENT

Nigerian military seizes leading newspapers New York, June 6, 2014--The Nigerian military this morning confiscated or destroyed copies of at least four leading newspapers, Punch, Leadership, Vanguard, and TheNation, around the country, according to news reports. A defense official claimed that authorities were looking for "materials with grave security implications," the reportssaid. "Denying Nigerians access to news and information sows the seeds of rumors and distrust," said Sue Valentine, CPJ's Africa program coordinator. "While we recognize that Nigeria faces security threats, these can never effectively be addressed by media blackouts or persecution of journalists. We call on authorities to respect the vital role that media play in circulating information and holding government to account." Journalists and news outlets have been targeted by both sides in Nigeria's protracted waragainst extremist sect Boko Haram, which seeks to establish Islamic rule in northern Nigeria. Security agents have used the pretext of the insurgency to threaten, harass, detain, and seize the equipment of journalists. Boko Haram has also threatened and carried out attacks on journalists and media outlets over reporting deemed unfavorable to their cause. Some journalists have relocated from Boko Haram strongholds in Nigeria's northern regions.

	THE ATLANTIC PRESENTS TA-NEHISI COATES' “THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS”: JEFFREY GOLDBERG TO INTERVIEW COATES AT SIXTH & I ON JUNE 12 “It is as though we have run up a credit-card bill and, having pledged to charge no more, remain befuddled that the balance does not disappear. The effects of that balance, interest accruing daily, are all around us.” Washington, D.C. (June 2, 2014)—Just days before the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,  Atlantic National Correspondents Ta-Nehisi Coatesand Jeffrey Goldberg will sit down to discuss “The Case for Reparations,” Coates’ powerful cover story in the magazine’s June issue on Thursday, June 12 at 7PM at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. The product of nearly two years of reporting, Coates’ piece—released  ​May 22 t o overwhelming reader response and critical praise—argues for America to reckon with the “moral debt” it has accrued: first for centuries of slavery, deepened by segregation, discrimination, and racist housing policies that persist to this day. The hour-long discussion will focus on the narrative Coates weaves in “The Case for Reparations,” and what the public response to his story says about the country’s readiness to contend with the consequences of a history of racism. The focus of his piece is Chicago’s West Side; he traces that neighborhood’s skyrocketing poverty, infant-mortality, unemployment, and homicide rates to the redlining officially mandated by the Federal Housing Administration after World War II. In moving interviews, Coates documents the predatory loans that were the only choice available to would-be black homeowners in Chicago—and the countermovement, the Contract Buyers League, that sprung up in the late 1960s seeking, in essence, reparations. Goldberg is himself an expert on the subject of reparations. For many years, he covered the controversies surrounding reparations to Jews victimized by Nazi Germany, and by Swiss and German banks, during the Holocaust. Tickets are available now on Sixth & I’s website. A sampling of praise for Coates’ “The Case for Reparations”: “This is the piece that everyone will be talking about for the next two weeks—or the next twenty years. So you might want to make some time to read it now.” —Dan Savage, American author and nationally syndicated advice columnist “Meanwhile, Ta-Nehisi Coates has done something extraordinary. ‘Must read’ is nowhere near strong enough.” —A.O. Scott, New York Times film critic “‘AN AMERICA that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane,’ writes the indispensable Ta-Nehisi Coates in this month's Atlantic cover story.” —The Economist "You must read it yourself. No, really, you must. The essay's length—more than 15,000 words—makes it difficult to absorb all at once, but the length is plainly part of the point." —Gawker “‘The Case for Reparations’ is a bold beginning to the greater conversation we must have on the damages wrought by racism that still need repair in our nation. That anyone in 2014 would be pleading, as Coates is, to simply talk honestly about the implications behind centuries of proven history of one group oppressing another, is astonishing. More remarkable still could be what happens as a result of him asking the question.” — The Guardian Additional event details follow. For media tickets or further information, please contact the press leads below. “THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS” AT A GLANCE: Thursday, June 12, 2014 7:00 p.m., ET (Doors open at 6:00 p.m.) Sixth & I 600 I Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001 Purchase Details: Tickets: $15 *Note: Ticket purchase includes a one-year subscription to The Atlantic.* Purchase online: Visit here. Purchase by phone: (877) 987-6487

EcoAmerica

Yesterday I had a lovely lunch downtown with Lisa Renstrom. She's an amazing woman and presently the director of EcoAmerica.

Here is a link to her organization:  www.ecoAmerica.org

The Fukushima Blues

https://portside.org/2014-06-03/newsflash-fukushima-still-disaster

Starting this Saturday, The Writer's Center presents  From the Editors' Desk: a series of one-day workshops with Poet Lore's editorial staff This summer, as Poet Lore celebrates its 125th year in print, join editor-in-chief Jody Bolz, translation editor Suzanne Zweizig, and review editor Jean Nordhaus for a series that brings Poet Lore’s mission of literary discovery to life.  Writer’s Center students will learn firsthand from Poet Lore's unique editorial culture, highlighted just last month in The Washington Post, how to uncover and create poems worthy of publication and praise.  Listening for that rare music amid a cacophony of dullness is what [Poet Lore's] critical success depends on. —Ron Charles, book critic for The Washington Post    Translation as Inspiration: A Generative Workshop with Suzanne Zweizig, translation editor Saturday, June 7, 10:30 AM-12:30 PM, The Writer's Center $40 (13% discount for members) This workshop will explore ways translation can inspire new work, new ways of thinking and new approaches to our writing—even if you don’t speak another language. Based on the definition and theory of translation as something that transports us to new places, it will introduce participants to poetry from a variety of languages and give them the opportunity to engage in translation exercises that go beyond the literal rendering of word-for-word. Participants will create two “translations” that may serve as the basis for new work.   The Editor's Eye: Preparing Your Poems for Submission with Jody Bolz, executive editorSaturday, July 12, 2:00 PM-4:30 PM, The Writer's Center $50 (13% discount for members)How does a journal editor decide which poems to accept—which to reject—when reading through hundreds of submissions each month? This class will offer sound advice from an editor's perspective on how to give your work the best chance of drawing interest. We'll discuss ways to make three critical decisions: where to submit, what to submit (in terms of matching poems to publications and grouping those poems to good effect), and how to present yourself in a cover letter. Students should bring along a sample cover letter and 6 to 8 poems for an in-class exercise.   The Critic's Eye: Reading and Writing about Poemswith Jean Nordhaus, review editorSaturday, July 26, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM, The Writer's Center $40 (13% discount for members) Reviewing a collection of poems not only requires close reading, but also an ability to articulate our reactions to work we love.  This workshop will address the elements of a successful review. Each class member will bring in a favorite poem by a contemporary poet and explain why we should value it, working with the class to identify insights that might guide a piece of critical writing. Students will gain a better understanding of the qualities an editor looks for when considering a review for publication. We hope to see you at The Writer's Center!

Poet Lore is published by The Writer's Center 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda MD 20815 | poetlore.com | Phone: 301.654.8664 Email: post.master@writer.org Privacy Policy | E-mail Preferences |or Email us with the subject line “unsubscribe” to discontinue receipt of emails from Poet Lore.   Copyright 2014 The Writer's Center

Conversations with African Poets & Writers: Zainab Hassan

06/03/2014 05:26 PM EDT

Tuesday, June 10, 12:00 Noon

Ms. Zainab Hassan is a Somali poet and a writer, and the Project Director of the National Library Initiative of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies in Mogadishu. She will be interviewed by Eve Ferguson, the Reference Librarian for East Africa, in the African and Middle Eastern Division, on her writings and her poetry. This event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division, and presented in partnership with The Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa.

Location: African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, LJ-220, Thomas Jefferson Building (second floor)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

E on DC

Sun, 06/01/2014 - 9:12am

FATHER'S DAY AND THE TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE

BY

 E. ETHELBERT MILLER

After all the tears from our mothers, what will our fathers do? I think about this as June brings Father’s Day into bloom again. I think of children missing in Nigeria or dead in South Korea. I think of the sadness deeper than blues of African American mothers standing over urban coffins. Tell me about the hole inside a father’s heart – don’t spread the rumor that we are all missing. How many men are crying – trying to hold up after all the horror? Maybe I now understand better those old black men I always saw helping at funerals, men walking the mourners down the aisles or carrying a coffin outside to a hearse. Where do these men go after the ceremonies? Who comforts them? Why after all the years of embracing sorrow do they now suffer from dementia? What do they wish to forget or simply refuse to remember? Tell me about the trauma and I will whisper about how every prayer is broken.

Come Father’s Day each year I think about how I am haunted by the ghost of my own father. Egberto Miller is still a mystery to me. He was a quiet man, a maintenance man, a postal worker sorting the mail for most of his life. It’s ironic that I have no letters from my father. No cards. I have only moments of memories that continue to fade as I grow older. Next year will be the 100^th year of my father’s birth. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Does the Pacific ever know the loneliness of the Atlantic? Is the canal just a kiss between two oceans?

When I walk the streets of DC I hear black men talking to themselves. I see many sitting on corners as if there were no more freedom trains departing. I suspect many of these men are fathers. Each one carrying a cross or story. Did Emancipation turn our sorrow songs into blues? After all the years are we still trying to escape something we cannot name? My brothers, our fathers, who now inherit at times only the emptiness of dreams.

What can I give a black man who stops me in the street and begs for a quarter or jokingly says he takes credit cards? What have become of our fathers, not just on Father’s Day but on these days that seem to be forever?

My children are now 27 and 32. I wonder what they once expected of me? When I was writing my second memoir, “The 5^th Inning,” I interviewed them. I needed to put a few questions between our distance. Could they understand the face I saw each morning when I stared into the mirror?  In “The 5^th Inning” I wrote:

When I’m very ill or dying, I can see my daughter coming to the hospital to visit. I can see the patient in the next bed turning on his side and saying “You’re blessed to have a beautiful child who still cares about you.” I’m not sad that we all have to die one day; I’m sad that so many of us will die alone. We will depart from the earth with our children living in another city. Maybe on a small desk or table there will be a card and flowers and maybe the phone will ring once a week. Maybe the grandchildren will send pictures drawn in crayon, adding a few misspelled words. You will prop yourself up in the bed and hold either a pill or a memory in your shaking hand. You will turn to stare at the ceiling or walls.

I’ll turn 65 in 2015. It’s like being a pitcher and looking over one’s shoulder at the bullpen and seeing a relief pitcher warming up. How many of us want Father’s Day to go into extra-innings? Why do I still have trouble throwing the curve? Why do so many things keep breaking in the hands of men?

E. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist and director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University. He is the author of several collections of poetry and two memoirs.

- See more at: http://www.capitalcommunitynews.com/content/e-dc#sthash.FBZczQLL.dpuf

5015 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington DC 20008 (202) 364-1919 (800) 722-0790 Monday-Saturday: 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday: 10 a.m.- 8 p.m. Modern Times Coffeehouse opens daily at 8 a.m. Join us for a conversation with Hillary Rodham Clinton, discussing choices and challenges she faced during her four years as America's 67th Secretary of State, and how these experiences drive her view of the future. She will be in conversation with Lissa Muscatine, Politics & Prose co-owner and former Clinton speechwriter and staffer.  This event is part of THE NEWSMAKERS SERIES, a partnership of Politics & Prose and George Washington University, Lisner Auditorium, that moves beyond the headlines to spark in-depth conversations about contemporary issues. There will be no book signing at this event. All copies of Hard Choices will be pre-signed.  1 Book and 1 Ticket: $55; $50 for members  to purchase. In order to obtain the Politics & Prose member price you must enter the coupon code that has been emailed to members separately. All books and tickets will be available at will-call 5 p.m. the day of the event. P&P will not have books or tickets available for pick up prior to the evening of the event. 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW www.politics-prose.com e-mail: books@politics-prose.com twitter: politics_prose facebook: politicsandprose tumblr: politicsprose

BOOKS FOR SUMMER READING:

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=ethelbert+miller&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&

Coming Attractions...

A new bookstore is coming to the Petworth community.

UPSHUR STREET BOOKS will be located at 827 Upshur Street, NW

This means a bookstore not far from where I live.

Are the good old days returning?

www.upshurstreetbooks.com

#56

you read Baldwin with your ears

your white mother crying

in the next room

this lover's battle Baldwin

called Civil Rights 

you call home

  - E. Ethelbert Miller

THE E -BOX

The next E-Box will be going to Beverly Hunt - a lover of books and the person my next book (published in Portugal) is dedicated to.
I hope to deliver her E-Box by the middle of July.

Photo by Ethelbert

Yuri Kochiyama

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Yuri-Kochiyama-dies-activist-got-reparations-for-5523712.php

I spent Sunday hanging out with my Buddy Bev. We took in a movie at Sankofa on Georgia Avenue.
Friendship is a One Way Street. When you have a good friend in your life - what is there to turn around for?

Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life.  If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.

                                                                   Stewart Baker NSA General Counsel

HAPPENING @ THE CORCORAN  Happening today at the Corcoran, don't miss: Botanical Collages Workshop Saturday, May 31; 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. FREE as part of the Corcoran's Free Summer Saturdays Programming   Inspired by Aaron Douglas' painting Into Bondage, create your own tropical landscape.   Also today, join us for:   Guided Tours: 11 a.m., 12, 1:30, and 3 p.m.   More information about Free Summer Saturdays and upcoming programming is available here.  500 Seventeenth Street NW  Washington, DC 20006

# 54

You hold two pills in your hand.
Your mouth opens like a zipper.
Anger keeps getting caught
on your tongue.

  - E. Ethelbert Miller

# 53

In the middle of another restless
night your hands pull the pillows
closer to your breasts. The fingerprints
from your previous lovers sleep undisturbed.

  - E. Ethelbert Miller