
E. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist. He is board chair of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). He is also a board member of The Writer’s Center and editor of Poet Lore magazine. The author of several collections of poems, his last book How We Sleep On The Nights We Don’t Make Love (Curbstone Press, 2004) was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist. Miller received the 1995 O.B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize. He was awarded in 1996 an honorary doctorate of literature from Emory & Henry College. In 2003 his memoir Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer (St. Martin’s Press, 2000) was selected by the DC WE READ for its one book, one city program sponsored by the D.C. Public Libraries. In 2004 Miller was awarded a Fulbright to visit Israel. Poets & Writers presented him with the 2007 Barnes & Noble/Writers for Writers Award. Mr. Miller is often heard on National Public Radio (NPR).
E. Ethelbert Miller is available for readings as well as conducting poetry and memoir writing workshops. To contact him directly for interviews or to set up an event, please email: [email protected]
The 5th Inning
SKU: 9781604865219
Author: E. Ethelbert Miller
Publisher: PM Press/Busboys and Poets
ISBN: 9781604860627 (HC) and 9781604865219 (paperback)
Published: April 2009 (HC) and April 2011 (paperback)
Format: Hardcover and Paperback, ePub, PDF, mobi
Page count: 176
Size: 5 x 8
Subjects: Memoir, African-American
Praise
“Traditionally, it’s viewed as a female occupation, to strip away the layers and examine the experience of relationships with a partner, with children, within one’s own interior emotional life. Here comes a strong, real male voice, exploring the terrifying territory of growing older–in a marriage, in a family, in one’s body. Ethelbert Miller writes with naked honesty and courage about what it is to be a man no longer young. Youth may have left him. Passion has not.”
—Joyce Maynard, author of At Home in the World
“The 5th Inning is a poetic meditation as much as a memoir. Ethelbert brings his poet’s eye to the game of baseball and transforms it into a metaphor for a life that knows strikes, groundouts, and errors as well as the beauty of a ball sailing straight across homeplate.”
—Josephine Reed, WPFW
“Ethelbert Miller brings an accomplished poet’s stunning language to this important memoir, and no one writes more eloquently about the lives–the triumphs and dilemmas–of black American men than he does.”
—Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage, on Fathering Words
Book Events
february, 2025
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Reviews
- A Poet’s Confession
- E. Ethelbert Miller’s 5th Inning
- 5th Inning Reviewed on Simmons Fields
- Poets at the Crossroads
- Writing for the Beloved Community
- E. Ethelbert Miller on Writerscast
- The Fifth Inning on Swans.com
- E. Ethelbert Miller, 2016 George Garrett Award Recipient
- 5th Inning Reviewed on Simmons Fields
Interviews
- Interview: GRAMMY GAME CHANGERS: E. Ethelbert Miller
- E. Ethelbert Miller on NPR
- Q&A with E. Ethelbert Miller of Poet Lore
- E. Ethelbert Miller on The Marc Steiner Show Breaking It Down about the forthcoming President Trump
- Stealing Third: An Interview with E. Ethelbert Miller
Mentions
- Distinguished Poet/Author Ethelbert Miller to Address W&M
- E. Ethelbert Miller in The Washington Post
- 5th Inning Named Best Memoir of Spring
Blog
- Interview: GRAMMY GAME CHANGERS: E. Ethelbert Miller
- Black Men Are Precious— E. Ethelbert Miller’s Grammy Nomination
- For the Love of Poetry and Baseball: PW Talks with E. Ethelbert Miller
- This Week’s Poetry Moment: A Party in Verse by E. Ethelbert Miller
- Obama’s War and God’s Other Eden
- Beating the Old Drum Again?