In the fall of 2024, we launched a project to create artifacts supporting our 2024-25 theme: The Language of Politics / The Politics of Language. We began by choosing students at GMU to collaborate with us on this program, and are excited to showcase a new poster by recent graduate Kevin Jones, a piece which seeks to bring the voice of DC’s de facto Poet Laureate, Ethelbert Miller to audiences in a new way. Produced and printed in Virginia, this broadside marks the first in a series that reflects both the international scope of the Cheuse Center and this year’s thematic focus. The Language of Politics/The Politics of Language and the broadside is supported in part by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
"Cheuse looks inward at America and outward to the world, but it also turns toward Virginia and across the Potomac to Washington and its surrounding counties," stated Leeya Mehta, Director of the Cheuse Center, on the project. "By collaborating within the Potomac Valley watershed, we aim to strengthen artistic and community ties while highlighting how American artists engage on a global stage. This year, our goal has been to refine the language of connection—to make it more nuanced, playful, and civil. To carry forward, as my ancestors taught me, good thoughts, good words, and good deeds."
Inspired by one of Ethelbert Miller’s previous broadsides, Mehta invited him to contribute a poem for this theme. She then reached out to Kevin Jones, a former student, to transform it into a compelling visual piece.
On his contribution, Miller remarked:
“I’m very happy a poem of mine was selected for the broadside project. It’s a beautiful interpretation of the importance of language. I wrote Only Language Can Hold Us Together when I was a young poet. To see the poem now not only being given new life but a visual resurrection is very heartwarming. The broadside introduces an old poem to a new audience. It’s another example of the importance of collaboration and the eternal breathing of art and literature.”
Jones shared a similar statement, inspired both by Miller’s work and the project’s compelling theme.
"When the opportunity to take part in this series was presented to me, I was both flattered and fascinated by the possibility of the synthesis that would be created,” said Jones. “What would the art created by two disconnected creators look like? When reading Ethelbert’s words, I was transported by the imagery within them. It seemed hazy and dreamlike. My duty at that point was to create visuals that could emulate and perhaps enhance those feelings."
Poem by E Ethelbert Miller
E. Ethelbert Miller is a writer and literary activist. He has been a a supportive force on the Baldwin100 with the Cheuse Center. He is the author of two memoirs and several books of poetry including The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller, a comprehensive collection that represents over 40 years of his work. For 17 years Miller served as the editor of Poet Lore, the oldest poetry magazine published in the United States. His poetry has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. Miller is a two-time Fulbright Senior Specialist Program Fellow to Israel. He holds an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature from Emory and Henry College and has taught at several universities.
Miller is host of the weekly WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and host and producer of The Scholars on UDC-TV. In recent years, Miller has been inducted into the 2015 Washington DC Hall of Fame and awarded the 2016 AWP George Garret Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature and the 2016 DC Mayor's Arts Award for Distinguished Honor. In 2018, he was inducted into Gamma Xi Phi and appointed as an ambassador for the Authors Guild. He was awarded a 2020 grant by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Miller’s most recent book If God Invented Baseball, published by City Point Press, was awarded the 2019 Literary Award for poetry by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
Art by Kevin S Jones
Kevin Jones is a visual artist and designer from the Northern Virginia area. Kevin’s visual practice focuses on the themes of race, intersectionality, equity and accessibility. He filters these themes through masterwork re-contextualization using pop culture, American comic books, anime and manga as lenses. He is fascinated by the concept of Afro-futurism and the implicit hopefulness presented by the concept and tries to harness it into much of his work.
Born in Washington D.C., Kevin grew up in Clifton, Virginia before attending Virginia Commonwealth University in the early 2000s where he studied illustration. Years later he returned to academia to further his education, receiving an AAS in graphic design at Northern Virginia Community College before transferring to George Mason University where he graduated in December 2024, with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts.
As an illustrator Kevin has published a book of some of his science fiction and fantasy illustrations called Transmissions from the Darkside of a Destroyed Moon as well as a variety of commission-based work for individuals. In his fine arts practice he has presented work in several shows in the Washington Baltimore area including, Re-Wire, Out of Order, and Singularity. He has also won jury prizes for his entries in the SGA Art Expo as well as the NVCC Art Show.
ONLY LANGUAGE CAN HOLD US TOGETHER by E. Ethelbert Miller
Only language
can hold us together.
I watch the women
bead their hair.
Each bead a word.
Braids becoming
sentences.
She would
never comb her hair
it was always wild
like new poetry
It was difficult
to understand.
She would enter
rooms where old women
would stare & mumble
& bold ones would say
“Where’s her mother?”
She never understood why
no one ever understood the
beauty of her hair.
Like free verse
so natural as conversation
so flowing like the French
or Spanish she heard or
overheard she thought she knew.
“I want to go to
Mozambique” she said one day.
Combing her hair
finding the proper beads
after so long.
“ I want to go to
Mozambique” she said.
Twisting her hair
into shape the way her
grandmother made quilts.
Each part separated &
Plaited.
“I want to go to
Mozambique or Zimbabwe
or someplace like Luanda.
I need to do something
about my hair.
If only I could
remember
the words
to the language
that keeps
breaking in my
hands"
Poem Copyright, E Ethelbert Miller
For a copy of the Broadside, come to our events and receive a free gift copy!
February 28, 2025