Poets and policy: a riff on narrative v. story

vol. 5 episode 36

Poet, Fulbright scholar, listerary activist, and former policy analyst, E. Ethelbert Miller. Credit: Literary Hill Bookfest.

Greetings,

It’s a bit of word jazz on this episode of the docu-mental podcast. I wanted to have Ethel on last year when he was nominated for a Grammy for his spoken word album, Black Men Are Precious, but the time wasn’t right for either of us.

So, instead, we have a little spoken word back and forth of our own, debating whether it’s the Christonationalfascists who are winning, or just whomever is clever enough to turn off the infostream long enough to hear themselves think.

Two particular bars of thought music worth noting in this episode are the reveries on rediscovering our myths vs. reimagining everything all over again; and, whether AI will force us out of our old stories and into being present for the now.

And if you pay attention, you will hear the strains of me confessing my ETs on earth theory, or at least a significant portion of it.

Ethelbert has been prolific of late, publishing about a book of poems a year since the pandemic, the latest being We Eclipse into the Other Side: Twoness Poems, a collaboration with poet and translator, Miho Kinnas.

Previously, Ethel was a two-time Fulbright scholar in Israel, the chair of the Institute for Policy Studies, and for more than 40 years, was the director of the Afro-American Resources Center at Howard University.

Peace,

Whitney