„Elizabeth Alexander“ – Versionsunterschied

Vorlage:Infobox Writer Elizabeth Alexander (born May 30, 1962) is an American poet, essayist, and playwright, and a Quantrell Award winning university professor.

Profile

Alexander was born in New York City and grew up in Washington D.C.. She is the daughter of former United States Secretary of the Army and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairman Clifford Alexander, Jr. Her brother Mark was a senior adviser to the Barack Obama presidential campaign and a member of the president-elect's transition team.

Her 2005 volume of poetry, "American Sublime" was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize of that year. Alexander is also a scholar of African-American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays entitled, The Black Interior.

Alexander has degrees from Yale University, Boston University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her Ph.D. While a graduate student, she was a reporter for the Washington Post. She currently teaches English language/literature, African-American literature and gender studies at Yale and was an academic fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, for the 2007-'08 academic year.

Alexander's poems, short stories and critical writings have been widely published in such journals and periodicals such as: "The Paris Review," "American Poetry Review," "The Kenyon Review," "The Village Voice," "The Women's Review of Books" and "The Washington Post." Her play, "Diva Studies," which was performed at the Yale School of Drama, garnered her a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship as well as an Illinois Arts Council award.

2009 U.S. Presidential inauguration

On January 20, 2009 at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, Alexander recited the poem "Praise Song for the Day," which she composed for the occasion. She became only the fourth poet to read at an American presidential inauguration, after Robert Frost in 1961, Maya Angelou in 1993, and Miller Williams in 1997.

The announcement of her selection was favorably received by her fellow poets Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, Paul Muldoon, and Jay Parini, who extolled her as "smart, deeply educated in the traditions of poetry, [yet remaining] true to her roots, responsive to black culture." The Poetry Foundation also hailed the choice, "Her selection affirms poetry's central place in the soul of our country."

Bibliography

Poetry

Years linked to corresponding "[year] in poetry" articles:

• 1990: The Venus Hottentot, Graywolf Press, ISBN 9781555973926
• 1995: Editor, Love's Instruments: Poems by Melvin Dixon, Chicago: Tia Chucha Press, ISBN 9781882688074
• 1997: Body of Life, Chicago: Tia Chucha Press, ISBN 9781882688128
• 2001: Antebellum Dream Book, Graywolf Press, ISBN 9781555973544
• 2005:
  • American Sublime, Graywolf Press, ISBN 9781555974329
  • Editor, The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, Library of America, ISBN 9781931082877
• 2006: American Blue: Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books Ltd, United Kingdom, ISBN 9781852247300
• 2007: Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color, co-author with Marilyn Nelson, young adult poems, publisher: Front Street Press, ISBN 9781590784563

Essays

Years linked to corresponding "[year] in literature" articles:

• 2003: The Black Interior, Graywolf Press, ISBN 9781555973933
• 2007: Power & Possibility University of Michigan Press ("Poets on Poetry" series) ISBN 9780472069378

External links

• Poets on Poets: Elizabeth Alexander, Frank Bidart, Charles Bernstein
• Official site of Elizabeth Alexander
• Quantrell Award: Elizabeth Alexander
• California Newsreel: Elizabeth Alexander