MAY MILLER

by Miller Newman    

               Great rocks frighten little people. “Gibraltar,” May Miller told reporter Isabel Wilkerson some thought it her greatest poem. She on the other hand, said at the time she passed by the rock, one of God’s masterpieces, in the early 1970s, she felt that so much had already been written about this Mediterranean sentinel that she remarked, “what could I add except my own little interpretation of some little thing that hit me as I passed?” More than forty years later, I think, well May Miller is a great rock, and then there are the rest of us--little people.  

Photos of Miller's art from the
collection of Dr. Miller Newman

            Great rocks are God’s gift to mankind, a humbling reminder that even when we can prove the existence of a thing using all of our five senses, that very same thing remains a mystery for all the ages. May Miller is like that, few can deny that nine books of published poetry is proof that a poet lives, but the harbinger of such beauty, the craftsmanship of the words, the natural selection of sound, syllable, meter and rhyme in the hands of May Miller become a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts. She is a great rock; complex in its shaping by tide and time. She was in her lifetime a sculptress*, a painter, a dancer, a portrait model. May Miller as a younger woman with dreams that took her to the halls of Exeter Academy where she brought to the privileged the perspective of a world beyond their gates was even then a great rock. Then as an older woman with engagements that included the public space of the District of Columbia’s Martin Luther King Library where Lois Mailou Jones, E. Ethelbert Miller and I, sat in plastic chairs next to a homeless man chased in from the frigid February night to be warmed by the sound of Miller reading from her recently published book, Collected Poems.

           May Miller was a teacher, a playwright, according to a classmate and friend of mine, Clement A. Goddard, “. . . who helped to shape black theater in the early 1900s . . . as a folk dramatist, [she] wrote on propaganda topics and used black and white characters and cast members in her plays” (Folkways and Folk Plays the Rhetoric of May Miller 14).  Her stalwart supporters, Betty Parry and Anne Johnston were there too that night which turned out to be one of her last public readings. It was a night, that twenty years or more later is frozen in my mind. That night is a memory I can conjure on a moment’s notice--my own little interpretation of some little thing that hit me as she passed. Claudia Tate, PhD concludes her article, “The Pondered Moment: May Miller’s Meditative Poetry” saying, “. . . Miller regards her work as the means to achieving immortality, as the markers left behind. Her meditative poetry permits her to mark her place in ‘green time,’ as it continually reminds us that life is only a series of quickly fleeting moments, and we would do well to ponder them” (New Directions January 1985 33).

James A. Porter Modern Negro Art, 1943

            May Miller’s “resolution to the problem of creating a black stage reality, which is ‘about us, by us, and for us,’ is most effective in her use of black language. Miller uses black rhetorical strategies such  as ‘signification’ and its many tropes to create a black theater that is filled with the rich experiences of black culture” (Goddard 49). Patrice Gaines-Carter in her article, “New Generation Discovers D.C. Poet May Miller” reports Miller said “There was a time I couldn’t be known as myself . . . . I always had my father’s name tagged onto mine. I’m proud of my background, but you have to make your own contribution in life. If you have any gift you’re obligated to share it.” May Miller has done that, shared her gift, but she’s not done yet. May Miller has poems yet unpublished, scribbled on the backs of old pieces of mail. There’s a second children’s book, and a novella rejected by some publisher way back in 1945; its cover, by James A. Porter**, a hastily sketched Baltimore street scene still intact.  And then, there is the novel she penned in the 1930s. May Miller’s pen knows no limits when it scratches across a page; her novel like her poems is a testimony to the gift she has and is obligated to share even posthumously. And so, I have created a blog, “May Miller Speaks” which launched this month. I will post her blessing as my ancestor to fulfill her personal obligation to “mark in green time” a legacy that will not be stolen, nor lost, nor strayed by inaction or the nefarious acts of others. GREAT ROCKS INDEED!

SPLENDID WAKE 3, Friday, March 20th 6:30 p.m.

For Immediate Release

For program information contact Joanna Howard asplendidwakeATgmail.com

For wiki and venue information, contact Jennifer King jenkingATgwu.edu 

A Splendid Wake 3

3^rd Annual Public Program 

Celebrating Poetry in the Nation’s Capital from 1900 to the Present

Friday, March 20^th, 2015 from 6:30-8:30 P.M. at George Washington University Gelman Library, Suite 702, 2130 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. (near Foggy Bottom Metro stop). Free and Open to the Public!

Join us for our 3^rd incarnation of A Splendid Wake as we continue our work of documenting poets and poetry movements in the Nation’s Capital from 1900 to the present. Our focus this vernal equinox is on Georgia Douglas Johnson and the “Saturday Nighters,” poet May Miller, the Federal Poets, Poetry Workshops born during “Poetry and the National Conscience” conferences, and the Modern Urban Griots.

Our stars this time around will include:  Regie Cabico, Host; Kim Roberts and Michon Boston on Georgia Douglas Johnson and the Saturday Nighters; Miller Newman on May Miller; Judith McCombs on the Federal Poets with Donald Illich and Dorrit Carroll; Linda Pastan and Rod Jellema on poetry workshops with Siv Cedering, Primus St. John, Roland Flint, and others; Toni Asanti Lightfoot on Modern Urban Griots with Brandon D. Johnson, Holly Bass and Twain Dooley; and Sunil Freeman, in the important role of Timekeeper!

Co-editor of Flicker and Spark: A Contemporary Queer Anthology of Spoken Word and Poetry and Poetry Nation: The North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry, Regie Cabico, our host, has received awards in National Slam competitions and for his work as slam coach for individual and team competitors in the U.S. and Canada. He is co-director of La-Ti-Do, a weekly spoken word and cabaret series in D.C.

Georgia Douglas Johnson—poet, playwright, and composer--brought together Kelly Miller and his daughter May Miller, Alain Locke, Carter G. Woodson, Angelina Weld Grimke, Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston and many others at weekly salons at her home on S Street in D.C. Her life and works will be presented by Kim Roberts, a true D.C. force for poetry and the author of four collections of poetry, the editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, the anthology Full Moon on K Street, and by Michon Boston, a writer/producer and author of “Iola’s Letter,” a play based on the events that transformed Ida B. Wells from a journalist to a staunch anti-lynching activist. Boston’s plays have been produced at the Source Theatre, the National Black Theater Festival in North Carolina, and the Kennedy Center.

May Miller was a Washington poet, playwright and educator whose literary career began in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Her father, Kelly Miller, was a nationally known author and philosopher, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of sociology at Howard University. He was the first African American to attend Johns Hopkins University where he studied astronomy. W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington visited their home. May spoke of having to give up her room for Paul Laurence Dunbar. An award May Miller received for a play was presented at a dinner attended by Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson and Jean Toomer. She served as chair of the Literature Panel of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Her niece, Miller Newman, will provide a picture of May Miller’s life. Miller Newman is a senior faculty member in the Department of English Composition and Reading at Montgomery College. She is a poet, essayist and aspiring novelist with a doctorate in Higher Education Administration.

The Federal Poets Workshop, founded in 1944, is the D.C. Metro area’s longest running workshop for poets. Members meet monthly at Tenley Public Library to critique poems and produce a biannual journal. Craig Reynolds, Frank Goodwyn, and Nancy Allinson have served as presidents. Don Illich is the current president. At least five workshops and two readings series have emerged from Federal Poets. Judith McCombs, Vice-President of Federal Poets since 2005, is a poet and literary scholar. Her poetry has appeared in many publications. The Habit of Fire: Poems Selected & New appeared in 2005. She directs the Kensington Row Bookshop Poetry Readings, edits for Word Works DC, and is on the Splendid Wake board. Don Illich, current head of Federal Poets, has published poems in The Iowa Review, Nimrod, and  Rattle. His poetry has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize. His chapbook, Rocket Children, appeared in 2012.  Doritt Carroll received her undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. In Caves and GLTTL STP were published by Brickhouse Books and her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Plainsongs and Journal of Formal Poetry.

Rod Jellema ran a series of conferences at the University of Maryland beginning in 1968, “Poetry and the National Conscience,” and sent letters out inviting folks to join a fortnightly writer’s workshop already in progress. Those who joined the existing group--Siv Cedering, Eddie Gold, Primus St. John and Bill Holland-- were Linda Pastan, Ann Darr, Roland Flint, Gary Sange, and Myra Sklarew. Other who joined occasionally were Elisavietta Ritchie, John Pauker, Henry Taylor.  “Notable sit-ins or drop-ins were Gene McCarthy, Bill Stafford, and Stanley Kunitz,” says Rod Jellema, who adds, “Ann Darr estimated that the members of the workshop published more than sixty books.”  Linda Pastan and Rod Jellema will reminisce about this workshop. Jellema, professor emeriti, University of Maryland founded the Creative Writing Program, and is the author of five collections of poems, the most recent, Incarnality: The Collected Poems. He is currently working on a history of early New Orleans jazz, Really Hot: A New Hearing for Old New Orleans Jazz.  Linda Pastan has published thirteen volumes of poetry, most recently Traveling Light. Two collections have been finalists for the National Book Award. A new collection, Insomnia, is due out from Norton in Fall 2015. In  2003, she received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.

The way Toni Asanti Lightfoot tells it, The Modern Urban Griots got their start on a cold February night in 1994 at a place called “It’s Your Mug Cafe” at 2601 P Street, N.W. in Georgetown. She says that this series “had a broad impact. It influenced the establishment of numerous poetry events on U Street, N.W.  as well as Blackman’s Freestyle Union hip-hop workshops and created a commitment to community and education.” Those who participated included Brandon D. Johnson, Holly Bass, Twain Dooley, and Lori Tsang, among others. Beloved hecklers were The Brock Crew, Kenny Carroll, Brian Gilmore and Joel Dias Porter (DJ Renegade). The group performed at the Whitney Museum in NY, the Nuyorican, and smaller venues around the city. In recent times the group reunited at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Toni Asanti Lightfoot, is a poet, educator, activist, and has an MS in Traditional Oriental Medicine. Her work has been anthologized and can be seen on YouTube. She is editor of Dream of a Word: A Tia Chucha Press Anthology.   Holly Bass, a Cave Canem fellow, writer and performer, studied modern dance and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and earned a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University. In 2011, The Root and 2012 Best Performance Artist in Washington City Paper named her one of the Top 30 Black Performance Poets internationally. Brandon D. Johnson, founding member of Modern Urban Griots and The Black Rooster Collective, received a BA from Wabash College and a JD from Antioch School of Law. He is a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, the author of Love’s Skin, Man Burns Ant, the Strangers Between, and has work published in numerous anthologies. Twain Dooley, born in D.C., served on active duty during Desert Storm, and after a 2-year stay in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (as a civilian), returned to Washington and began to perform for a variety of audiences. Author of several books, he has opened for Amiri Baraka and Jimmy “JJ” Walker, won top honors on the DC/Baltimore Slam Team, and is currently working on the story of his life, “None of This Makes Sense.”

Splendid Wake Wiki: http://wikis.library.gwu/dcpoetry/index.php/Main_Page

Splendid Wake-up Blog: http://splendidwake.blogspot.com