Melville House Books

Elizabeth Alexander

For the first time since the last inaguration of Bill Clinton — meaning twelve years and a lifetime ago — a poet will be featured at the swearing in ceremony of an American president. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced yesterday that Barack Obama had chosen Yale University professor Elizabeth Alexander to read a poem at the ceremony to be held on January 20 in Washington, DC. As an article in The Guardian observes, Alexander, a friend of Obama’s who will write a new poem for the occasion, is the first poet to read at the ceremony since Bill Clinton’s last inauguration. (Although the Guardian has a few things wrong — that swearing in was in 1997, not 1993, and the poet was Miller Williams — Lucinda Williams’ father — not Maya Angelou. She read at Clinton’s first inaugural in 1993.) “To be asked to turn my own words to this occasion and for this person is all but overwhelming,” said Alexander. She says the challeng is to come up with a poem that “speaks to the occasion [and] has its own integrity.” Alexander, a professor at Yale University, is the author of four books of poetry, including, most recently, Ars Poetica, which included the following poem:

Poetry is what you find

in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God

in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.

Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,

and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)

is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.