Celebrating Elizabeth Alexander

Elizabeth Alexander Inaugural Poem

Acclaimed poet and University of Michigan Press author Elizabeth Alexander on January 20th became one of just four poets in the history of this country to have their poems included in a presidential inauguration. She read a new poem at the ceremony swearing in President-elect Barack Obama, and we here at the UM Press could not be more proud. Congratulations, Professor!

From Phil Pochoda, Director of the University of Michigan Press:

The University of Michigan Press is immensely proud that the incoming President of the United States, Barack Obama, has chosen Elizabeth Alexander, author of and contributor to two books that we publish, for the honor of reading an original poem at his inauguration. Though her exceptional talent and insight have long been obvious to us, we are gratified that Professor Alexander has been singled out in this historic manner.

We want to salute Greywolf Press, which has been Professor Alexander's primary poetry publisher. But her involvement with the University of Michigan Press stems from two long-standing publishing efforts of which this Press is also very proud. Professor Alexander's imaginative and passionate book of essays on poets, politics and poetry, entitled Power & Possibility, was published in our legendary Poets on Poetry Series, now some 31 years old with 95 books to its credit, dedicated to the critical essays of many of the major poets of the United States through this period. This press has also been one of the leading publishers in recent years of works of and about the writers associated with the Black Arts movement of the 1960's and 70's. When the Cave Canem group, formed in the 1990's to foster the work of African American poets, was searching for a publisher for its 10th anniversary poetry anthology, Gathering Ground, for which Professor Alexander contributed both a poem and an introduction, we were, therefore, a natural fit. We feel fortunate and privileged to have published Elizabeth Alexander in these two distinguished venues.

About Elizabeth Alexander 

Elizabeth Alexander was born in Harlem, New York City, and grew up in Washington, DC. She received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University (where she studied with acclaimed West Indies poet Derek Walcott), and the Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. Alexander has read her poetry and lectured on African-American literature and culture across the country and abroad.

She has published four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001) and, most recently, American Sublime (2005), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. American Sublime was chosen to be one of the 25 Notable Books of 2005 by the American Library Association, which called it "sparkling with humanity and unexpected grace." Her collection of essays, The Black Interior, was published in 2004.

In 2006, she contributed a poem and an introduction to Gathering Ground, the University of Michigan Press compilation of 10 years of work from the acclaimed Cave Canem Foundation for African-American poets, where she serves as a faculty member. In 2007, UM Press published Power & Possibility as part of its Poets on Poetry series. The book is Alexander's collection of her essays, reviews and interviews that study and comment on American literature and culture.

Her short stories and critical prose have been widely published in such periodicals and journals as Signs, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Village Voice, The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Her poems are anthologized in dozens of collections.

Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago, the George Kent Award, given by Gwendolyn Brooks, and a Guggenheim fellowship. In 2007 Alexander won the first annual $50,000 Jackson Prize for Poetry, which honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit. She is an inaugural recipient of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that "contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954."

Alexander's play, "Diva Studies," was produced at the Yale School of Drama in May 1996, and she was a dramaturge for Anna Deavere Smith's play "Twilight" in its original production at the Mark Taper Forum.

She has taught at Haverford College, the University of Chicago, New York University, and Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence and first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College. She spent a year as a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She is presently Professor of African-American Studies and English Literature at Yale University.

Prof. Alexander herself had this to say:

"I'm completely thrilled to have been chosen for this honor," she said in a Yale University interview. "Barack Obama is a man who understands the power and integrity of language. To be asked to turn my own words to this occasion and for this person is all but overwhelming."

"President-elect Obama has put poetry front and center, only the fourth time that this has happened at an inauguration," she told the Wall Street Journal. "It says culture matters, that it's transforming and not merely stirring, that it's fundamental to ways in which we can think about moving forward...

"Poetry, because it is language distilled and because it is also such intensely precise language, provides us with a moment of respite and meditation, moments where we have to stop and listen very carefully to every word."

What others have to say about Elizabeth Alexander 

"President-Elect Obama has made a wise choice in Elizabeth Alexander, a poet of exceptional eloquence, depth, and grace. In the tradition of James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, and Toni Morrison, she is equally adept as literary writer, social observer, and cultural critic. Her inaugural poem will no doubt inspire our nation in this troubled and extraordinary time."
—Maurice Berger, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland Baltimore County

"Elizabeth Alexander's verse sings the plight and the power of those who struggle to survive. The smallest details of daily life, the resounding echoes of epochs, find their voices in her work. Alexander has woken us to a dream of deliverance that we share with language and music..."
—Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University

"Elizabeth Alexander is one of the brightest stars in our literary sky, a poet of poise and power. Her sharp intelligence and her knowledge of the contemporary arts make her a superb, invaluable commentator on the American scene...With her considerable poetic skills and her complex vision of American history and culture, Elizabeth Alexander is an inspired choice to play such a prominent role in the presidential inauguration."
—Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University

Read some of Alexander's work 

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