Update: Inaugural Poet Announced

A few weeks ago I shared a BBC report about who would be the inaugural poet at the upcoming presidential inagruation. I found this article in the NY Times today. Below the article is a random excerpt of hers that I found on-line. Enjoy!

Poet Chosen for Inauguration Is Aiming for a Work That Transcends the Moment
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
December 21, 2008

Elizabeth Alexander, who teaches at Yale, was plucked last week from the relatively obscure recesses of contemporary poetry for a moment on the world stage. President-elect Barack Obama has commissioned her to compose and read a poem for his inauguration, making her only the fourth poet in American history to read at one and elevating the art to unaccustomed prominence in the national psyche, at least for a day.

Ms. Alexander, 46, is the incoming chairwoman of the African-American studies department at Yale and the mother of two sons, 9 and 10. She writes often of race, gender and class, in both poetry and prose, nurtures young black poets through Cave Canem, a poetry workshop, and has been a friend of Mr. Obama for more than a decade.

Asked if she thought that the friendship played a role in her being picked for the inauguration, she said no. The Obamas have many friends and know other poets, she said.

“One of the things we’ve seen with every choice he’s made is that it’s based on what he perceives as excellence,” Ms. Alexander said. “I don’t think you would let friendship determine who you chose to do something like this. You can do lots of things to be nice to your friends — you can invite them to an inaugural ball. But I don’t think friends have to do each other this kind of favor.”

There was some question about whether Mr. Obama would include a poet at all in his inaugural program. There have been only three: Robert Frost in 1961, Maya Angelou in 1993 and Miller Williams in 1997.

And Ms. Angelou said that when she heard of Ms. Alexander’s selection, she smiled. “She seems much like Walt Whitman,” she said. “She sings the American song.”
After examining previous inaugural poems, she has decided that hers will be brief. “This is one small piece of many pieces and we know what the centerpiece is,” she said, referring to Mr. Obama’s inaugural address.

“President-elect Obama is extremely efficient with language,” she added. “It is tremendously rich and tremendously precise but also never excessive. I really, really admire that. That’s a poet’s sensibility. I’m going to follow his lead.”

A Poem for Nelson Mandela
Here where I live it is Sunday.
From my room I hear black
children playing between houses
and the El at a Sabbath rattle.
I smell barbecue from every direction
and hear black hands tolling church bells,
hear wind hissing through elm trees
through dry grasses

On a rooftop of a prison
in South Africa Nelson Mandela
tends garden and has a birthday,
as my Jamaican grandfather in Harlem, New York
raises tomatoes and turns ninety-one.
I have taken touch for granted: my grandfather’s hands,
his shoulders, his pajamas which smell of vitamin pills.
I have taken a lover’s touch for granted,
recall my lover’s touch from this morning
as Mandela’s wife pulls memories through years
and years

my life is black and filled with fortune.
Nelson Mandela is with me because I believe
in symbols; symbols bear power; symbols demand
power; and that is how a nation
follows a man who leads from prison
and cannot speak to them. Nelson Mandela
is with me because I am a black girl
who honors her elders, who loves
her grandfather, who is a black daughter
as Mandela’s daughters are black
daughters. This is Philadelphia
and I see this Sunday clean.