Prize-winning Author and Daughter of GW Professor Is Inaugural Poet

GW’s float wasn’t the University’s only connection to the official inauguration activities. Elizabeth Alexander, professor of African American studies at Yale University and daughter of GW Adjunct Professor of History Adele Alexander, served as the inaugural poet at the Jan. 20 swearing-in ceremony of President Barack Obama. Dr. Alexander recited “Praise Song for the Day,” joining the ranks of poets Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, and Miller Williams as the fourth poet to be asked to read an original poem at the U.S. Capitol ceremony.

“I was incredibly honored and humbled,” says Dr. Alexander. “It was a momentous occasion. I had to keep myself quiet and grounded to appreciate it and not scare the muse away with my excitement.”

Raised in Washington, D.C., Dr. Alexander has published five books of poems, a young adult collection, two essay collections, and a play. Her 2005 poetry book American Sublime was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books of the Year. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic, and Bengali, and have been a part of the GW English Depart­ment’s African American literature curriculum for many years. Dr. Alexander has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She will become the chair of Yale’s Department of African American Studies in July.

Dr. Alexander says she approached writing the inaugural poem, an original work crafted for the occasion, the same way she does her other poems. She keeps a pen and pad on herself at all times and listens for language around her, noting people’s turns of phrase, regionalisms, and different generational ways of speaking. Dr. Alexander says she also finds inspiration in books and music. Once she begins writing, she says she can churn out “millions” of drafts before she is satisfied with the poem on the page.

“Poetry is a way for people to tell the story of who they are,” Dr. Alexander says. “It is a written art form but it begins in voice and within the body. It allows people to reach across differences and connect with each other.”

Dr. Alexander has known President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama since her days teaching at the University of Chicago in the 1990s. She says President Obama pays careful attention to language and she wanted to do the same in her inaugural poem.

“What makes the inaugural poem different from a lot of my other work is that it has a job to do,” Dr. Alexander says. “It was chosen for a particular occasion. The best way I can do that is to not give a sermon-on-the-mount but to write something as careful and mindful as I can.”

GW Adjunct Professor of History Adele Alexander was on hand with Dr. Alexander’s husband and children to watch her daughter read the poem. Dr. Alexander’s father, Clifford L. Alexander Jr., the first African American secretary of the Army and former chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sat with Dr. Alexander on the platform during the ceremonies.

“We are proud and thrilled that she has been asked to be the inaugural poet,” says Dr. Adele Alexander, who has taught at GW since 1993. “It’s an enormous honor, especially since only three poets ever have been selected to do this in past years.”

Obama’s inauguration reminds Dr. Alexander of another iconic moment on the mall—one that she experienced as a young child. Dr. Alexander was one year old when her parents brought her to the National Mall to hear Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech from the Lincoln Memorial. “The struggle is not over, but I think our election of an African American president, and one of such tremendous caliber, was a moment of unalloyed progress,” she says. “It makes for a really nice circle.”

“Praise Song for the Day” will be published in February by Graywolf Press.

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