So Barack Obama has chosen poet Elizabeth Alexander to read at this January's inauguration. Who is she, and why her? It's a choice that reflects his serious, pragmatic side. Alexander is an African-American, born in Harlem in 1962, who has published four books; the last, American Sublime, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A professor of African-American studies at Yale (from which she also matriculated), Alexander writes poems that are metaphorically and linguistically dense, layered, and subtle. Her work speaks about black experience (see the excerpt from The Venus Hottentot on her Web page). But she can't be said to privilege identity politics over aesthetics; her poems work more at being complex than didactic. In this sense, she's an analogue to Obama, who doesn't privilege identity politics over his strategy of inclusiveness. Her choice also reflects Obama's faith in the meritocracy: a poet with a Ph.D., Alexander comes across as methodical and hardworking. I saw her give a reading last fall at Princeton with the wonderful young poet Terrance Hayes, a witty former basketball player (whom I'd half-hoped Obama would choose; he would've reflected the president-elect's playful side). Alexander was businesslike: There was no quipping or flirting with the audience.
Though only four poets (I think) have ever read at inaugurations, Alexander won't actually be the first African-American woman to receive the honor —Bill Clinton asked Maya Angelou to read at his 1993 inauguration. Alexander doesn't have much else in common with Angelou, though; she's more like Robert Frost, who read at Kennedy's inauguration. Her best poems are imaginatively expansive as well as philosophical. Here's a representative poem, called "Stravinsky in L.A." You can imagine Obama liking the end:
Stravinsky in L.A.
In white pleated trousers, peering through green
sunshades, looking for the way the sun is red
noise, how locusts hiss to replicate the sun.
What is the visual equivalent
of syncopation? Rows of seared palms wrinkle
in the heat waves through green glass. Sprinklers
tick, tick, tick. The Watts Towers aim to split
the sky into chroma, spires tiled with rubble
nothing less than aspiration. I've left
minarets for sun and syncopation,
sixty-seven shades of green which I have
counted, beginning: palm leaves, front and back,
luncheon pickle, bottle glass, etcetera.
One day I will comprehend the different
grades of red. On that day I will comprehend
these people, rhythms, jazz, Simon Rodia,
Watts, Los Angeles, aspiration.