Elizabeth Alexander is currently a chancellor of the Academy of American poets. She graduated from Yale and also holds a degree from Boston University. She’s spent her career promoting African American poetry. Her 2005 book, American Sublime, was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize.
‘Butter’ by Elizabeth Alexander uses potent imagery to create a nostalgic vision of the home-cooked meals enjoyed in childhood.
My mother loves butter more than I do,
more than anyone. She pulls chunks off
the stick and eats it plain, explaining
cream spun around into butter! Growing up
‘Equinox’ by Elizabeth Alexander is a heartfelt poem about death and how all living things are forced to contend with it. The speaker uses a creative metaphor comparing bees on the equinox to her grandmother.
Now is the time of year when bees are wild
and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped
loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants
in the bright, late-September out-of-doors.
Elizabeth Alexander read the poem, ‘Praise Song for the Day’ at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009. It is an occasional poem praising the Americans’ role in nation-building.
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.
‘Affirmative Action Blues’ appears in Elizabeth Alexander’s Body of Life (1996). This poem is about the incident of police brutality on Rodney King in 1991.
Right now two black people sit in a jury room
in Southern California trying to persuade
nine white people that what they saw when four white
police officers brought batons back like
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