First Light: New and Selected Poems

Much of First Light is autobiographical, a young boy growing into urban manhood; it's a book of family, of strangers, of learning to tell time by the people that populated E. Ethelbert Miller's life. He has populated his work with mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and lovers who fight daily to be able to do simple things like drink clean water and sleep without gunshots interrupting their dreams. He takes instruction from Pablo Neruda, Margaret Walker, political prisoners and finds inspiration in the aloneness of Winnie Mandela. Mostly, it is a book of love, personal and cultural. It's silences are penetrating, its insights are liberating, its violence is quieting and its love is contagious.