Yale Poet Elizabeth Alexander Prepares Poem To Read to Thrill at Obama Inauguration: Who is She?

What a great honor for this professor to be selected to read her own composition on January 20, 2009! Her dream will finally come true.

Elizabeth Alexander, professor of African-American studies at Yale University, was chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to compose and read a poem for his inauguration on Jan. 20.

"I'm completely thrilled and deeply, deeply honored," Alexander said Thursday.

Alexander's mother is a historian specializing in African-American women's history at George Washington University. Her father was a presidential civil rights adviser and secretary of the Army.

"The civil rights movement was fully alive in our home," Alexander said.

Even though she is a friend of the Obamas, it is her experience, craft and contributions that helped her get selected for this honor.

Check this out here or go to her website: http://www.elizabethalexander.net/home.html

"Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is the author of four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, Antebellum Dream Book, and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. She is also a scholar of African-American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays, The Black Interior. She has read her work across the U.S. and in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, and her poetry, short stories, and critical prose have been published in dozens of periodicals and anthologies...."


Elizabeth Alexander is a very accomplished writer, poet and essayist. She will deliver for this great occasion. In an interview on NPR last week, she said she is going to prepare a short but very intense poem.

Elizabeth Alexander was born in 1962 in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Washington, D.C. She received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University (where she studied with Derek Walcott), and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her collections of poetry include American Sublime (Graywolf Press, 2005), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Antebellum Dream Book (2001); Body of Life (1996); and The Venus Hottentot (1990).

Alexander’s critical work appears in her essay collection, The Black Interior (Graywolf, 2004). She also edited The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks (Graywolf, 2005) and Love’s Instruments: Poems by Melvin Dixon (1995). Her poems, short stories, and critical writing have been widely published in such journals and periodicals as The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Callaloo, The Village Voice, The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Her work has been anthologized in over twenty collections, and in May of 1996, her verse play, Diva Studies, premiered at the Yale School of Drama...."

An Inaugural Poem for Barack Obama

Tears of Joy
(jc)

The huge lump is gone from their heart

From East to West Coast and from North to South,

The burden is lifted for ever

The vestiges of the past are slowly forgotten

The yokes of past slavery are broken once for all

It is a general catharsis

The Day after general elections results,

Americans become prouder of the reshaping of their image

In the world.

No longer are their pursued by the ghosts of the civil rights struggle,

Of Little Rock, Birmingham and Greensboro



Why have Americans cried?

Oprah Winfrey cried her eyelashes off; Her make up became a moist mess

Michelle Obama was in disbelief. She briefly cried and embraced her daughters

Jesse Jackson as well as Colin Powell, Whites as well as Blacks cried

On this new day. The Day of change has finally come to America

Americans and the rest of the world rejoiced over the victory speech

And cried over the past inequities, injustices, slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination and prejudices

Dr. King's Dream has finally come to pass!

We, Americans, cried over the surging memories of Dr. King's March on Washington,

Mississippi's Freedom Summer, Detroit's riots, and Selma's Bloody Sunday


Americans cried over the numerous separate but equal signs in the South and elsewhere

We cried over the separate buses, restaurants, Hotels, second-class status, and water fountains

We cried over all the sittings and the dogs that bit and tore our flesh

Under the cops' beatings and the hurricanes of high-volume water hoses that blinded us

We cried over the institutional racism, the enforced laws that regulated our systems and societies

We cried over all the written and unwritten rules of the Ol' South that snuffed Emmet Till's breath

We cried over Jim Crow, the KKK's unrelentless raids, attacks and fire setting on innocent homeowners

We cried over the courage of a few brave men who stood up only to be wiped out by strong interests

The slavery system and subsequent Jim Crow were all about exploiting the weak for monetary purposes

We cried over the numbing fears that crippled us and made us believe that we could do anything

To change our fate. "Yes, we can now. Yes, we can," Chanted the huge crowd at Grant Park, Chicago


"Less than 40 years after an African American was not allowed to use the same bathroom as a white person,

Sleep in the same hotel, ride on the same bus, go to the same school

Less than 40 years later, our nation showed the entire world why it is the greatest nation on earth

And selected an African American as its 44th President," wrote the blogger

We cried because as a society we finally decided to take the country in a new direction


We are suddenly filled with a new source of optimism

And feel ready to rebuild and tackle our pressing problems

New strengths are needed in the face of two wars, a sinking economy,

A warming planet, a troubled healthcare system, energy needs, foreign policy issues,

Financial and housing crisis, and credit crunch

Suddenly, American's day of celebration and euphoria gave way to reflections

Dr. Martin Luther King would be rejoicing over this new day

Nelson Mandela congratulates Obama and the American people

"your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream

Of wanting to change the world for a better place."

Indeed, hope has won over racial prejudices in this history-making presidential campaign

The rest of the world has just witnessed the determination and power of this great country

Yes, we have overcome! Yes, we have overcome!

We have reined in the dark forces and have overcome our prejudices and conquered our own fears

The last glass ceiling has just been shattered once for all in the U.S.A.

Indeed, the Blacks of St. Domingue were right for fighting for freedom and political independence in 1804

"Freedom and progress know no boundary."

The biggest assets of the U.S.A. are her children

Blacks as well as Whites, Hispanic as well as Asian or any other ethnic group

No child should be left behind.

We cried over how far we have come. This is a collective sign of relief.


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