M.e. Miller,  also known as  Michael Ellis, was professionally   published before he graduated from high school. His dialect poems, “Black  shoes” and “What Ya Stealin for?” were enough to  impress the University of  Puget Sound, where he majored in English and minored  in Journalism. Six  years later Ellis went from the page to the stage, performing  in more than  a hundred readings. He became an orator,  and a dramatist, teaching himself  to perform in more than twenty  different voices. He used his ability more  often to help people who were victims of abuse and injustice. On stage  he  tells stories by combining prose and poetry, naming his style “Prosetry”.

Compared often  to renaissance poet Langston Hughes, Ellis worked for years to expand his  skill set. He wanted to be more than a dialect poet. The  pressure of  historical comparison began to take a devastating toll. In 1996 Pulitzer prize winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, wrote him the first of four times.  She told him to calm down and that it would all make sense in time.

In 2006, he was invited on scholarship to Howard University for the first chapter  of a novel, Dear Oprah. He  performed at the Hurston- Wright annual convention. Months later he was also honored with a prize at Sacramento State University for  that same novel. He was also awarded a second prize for his children’s short story, “The Legend of Sleepy.” In 2012 M.e.  Miller  returned to the poetry scene after many years away. His book, Goodbye  Langston, a tribute to Langston Hughes, will be released later this  year.
Read M.e. Miller’s Poems.