Elizabeth Alexander

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Elizabeth Alexander (born May 30, 1962 in Harlem ) is an American poet , essayist and playwright . Alexander has been President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation since 2018 . Previously, she spent 15 years professor at Yale University , where she Poetry taught and the Department of African American Studies conducted. In 2016, she moved to the Faculty of Columbia University as a Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of Humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature .

Early life

Alexander grew up in Washington, DC . She is the daughter of former US Secretary of State and Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission Clifford Alexander Jr. and Professor of African American Women's History at George Washington University and writer Adele Logan Alexander . Her brother, Mark C. Alexander, was a senior advisor to Barack Obama's presidential campaign and a member of the President- elect's transition team. After she was born, the family moved to Washington, DC. As a toddler, she was taken to Washington by her parents when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech, I Have a Dream . Alexander, who took ballet lessons as a child , described that politics was “in the drinking water” at home.

She was educated at the Sidwell Friends School and graduated in 1980. This was followed by studies at Yale University, which she finished in 1984 with a bachelor's degree . At Boston University she took a master's degree with the writer Derek Walcott poetry, which she graduated in 1987. Loving the works of Walcott, Alexander was encouraged to study by her mother. Alexander first wrote novels . After Walcott got a glimpse of her diary , he realized her potential for poetry . Alexander said about this experience:

“He gave me a huge gift. He took a cluster of words and he lineated it. And I saw it. "

“He gave me a huge gift. He took a group of words and arranged them. And I saw it. "

In 1992 Alexander received his PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania . In parallel to her studies, she taught from 1990 to 1991 at nearby Haverford College. During this time she published her first volume of poetry, The Venus Hottentot . The title was based on the South African Sarah Baartman , a woman of the Khoikhoi ethnic group from the 19th century, who appeared as Hottentot Venus in London. Alexander took part in the offers of the Ragdale Foundation , which has set itself the task of providing work space for artists from various disciplines.

After graduation

Alexander was a reporter for the Washington Post from 1984 to 1985 as a PhD student , but soon realized that this was not the job she wanted to do. She began teaching English at the University of Chicago in 1991 as an Assistant Professor. In 1992 she first met Barack Obama , the future President of the United States, who was a lecturer in the law school of the university from 1992 until his election to the US Senate in 2004 . That same year she won a creative writing scholarship from the National Endowment for the Arts .

In 1996 Alexander published the volume of poetry Body of Life and the verse Diva Studies , which premiered at Yale University . She was a founding member of the Cave Camen Workshop , which promotes the development of African American poets. A year later, she received the University of Chicago's Quantrell Award for excellence in teaching that she took on during undergraduate studies. She later moved to Massachusetts to teach at Smith College . She received the Grace Hazard Conkling poet-in-residence award and was the first person to be appointed to the position of director of the Poetry Center .

She returned to Yale in 2000 and taught African American and English. She also published her third volume of poetry, Antebellum Dream Book . In 2005 she was elected to the first class of the Alphonse Fletcher Foundation's scholarship holders . From 2007 to 2008 she was a research fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Harvard .

In 2007 Alexander won the Jackson Poetry Prize, which was awarded for the first time that year. It is awarded by the non-profit organization Poets & Writers and honors "American poets with an exceptional talent who have achieved wider recognition in this way."

Since 2008, Alexander has headed the Chair of African American Studies at Yale University. She also taught English language and literature as well as African American literary studies and gender studies.

In 2015 Alexander was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets . A year later she was appointed Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of Humanities at Columbia University . In 2018 she was awarded an honorary doctorate "Doctor of Letters" and was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences the following year . In 2020 Alexander was elected to the American Philosophical Society .

Work

Alexander's poems, short stories, and critical texts have been published in numerous journals, magazines, and newspapers including The Paris Review , American Poetry Review , The Kenyon Review , The Village Voice , The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post . She received a national scholarship in creative writing and an award from the Illinois Arts Council for her play Diva Studies , which was performed at the Yale School of Drama . Her volume of poetry, American Subline , published in 2005, was one of the three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, which took place that same year . A scholar of African American literature and art, Alexander has published a collection of essays called The Black Interior . In 2010 Alexander received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for her life's work in poetry.

Inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009

January 20, 2009 Alexander recited her poem at the inauguration of US President Barack Obama Praise Song for the Day ( hymn for the day ), she has created specially for the occasion. After Robert Frost (1961), Maya Angelou (1993) and Miller Williams (1997), she was the fourth female poet to be read or read at the presidential inauguration. The poets Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, Paul Muldoon and Jay Parini welcomed Alexander's selection and described their colleague as “smart, deeply educated in the traditions of poetry, true to her roots, responsive to black culture.” (“Klug und deep in educated in the traditions of poetry, stands by its roots and reacts to black culture. ”) The Poetry Foundation congratulated with the words“ Her selection affirms poetry's central place in the soul of our country. ”(“ Alexander's calling confirms the central place of poetry in the soul of our country. ")

Although the selection of a largely unknown poet who was Obama's personal friend received praise, the poem and its delivery met with a negative response. The Chicago Tribune , the publisher of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and most of the critics complained that "your poem contained too much prose " and "its presentation was not sufficiently dramatic." The Minneapolis Star Tribune found the poem "boringly bureaucratic" and found the poet's place to be not on the podium, but in the crowd. She shouldn't speak for the people, but to them.

In January 2017, Alexander wrote in the US magazine The New Yorker about her experiences with the lecture at the inauguration. She mentioned that she was able to get her father, who was taking part in the March 2016 March on Washington for Work and Freedom, to sit next to her for the celebrations. During rehearsals, Alexander read the poem “Kitchenette Building” by Gwendolyn Brooks .

Private life

Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University found, according to a 2010 study for the PBS series Faces of America , that Alexander is a cousin of Stephen Colbert , who was also a guest on the show, according to DNA analysis . Her paternal grandfather moved from Kingston to the United States in 1918 . The pedigree of their mother could be up to 37 generations traced. Her famous ancestors include her 23rd great-grandmother Joan, Princess of England, the 24th great-grandparents, King John I of England and Clemence, mistress of the king, as well as the 37th great-grandmother. Grandfather Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor .

Alexander was married to Ficre Ghebreyesus , who died in April 2012. She lives in New York City with her two sons .

bibliography

Collections of poems

Essays and introductions

  • Melvin Dixon: Love's Instruments. Introduction by Elizabeth Alexander, Tia Chuca Press, Chicago 1995, ISBN 978-1-8826-8807-4
  • The Black Interior, Graywolf Press, 2004, ISBN 978-1-5559-7393-3
  • Power and Possibility. Essays, Reviews, and Interviews (Poets on Poetry), University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 2007, ISBN 978-0-4720-6937-8

memories

  • The Light of the World. A Memoir, Grand Central Publishing, New York 2015, ISBN 978-1-4555-9987-5
  • Alexander, Elizabeth: Lottery tickets: mourning a husband.

Reviews and recessions

  • How to remember. In: The Economist.
  • Andrea Gollin: Review. Elizabeth Alexander's 'The Light of the World'

Web links

Commons : Elizabeth Alexander  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Elizabeth Alexander. (No longer available online.) The Africana Research Center. PennState College of the Liberal Arts, archived from the original on July 30, 2010 ; accessed on July 18, 2019 .
  2. ^ Profile of Elizabeth Alexander on the homepage of Yale University. (No longer available online.) July 6, 2014, archived from the original on 2014 ; accessed on August 4, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Elizabeth Alexander - Words That Shimmer. Retrieved July 18, 2019 (American English).
  4. ↑ Larry Milstein, Emma Platoff 2:04 am, Sep 18, 2015: Elizabeth Alexander, poet and professor, to depart for Columbia. Retrieved July 18, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Elizabeth Alexander '84 named president of the Mellon Foundation. February 7, 2018, accessed July 18, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Katharine Q. Seelye: Poet Chosen for Inauguration Is Aiming for a Work That Transcends the Moment . In: The New York Times . December 20, 2008, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed July 18, 2019]).
  7. ↑ Katharine Q. Seelye: Poet Chosen for Inauguration Is Aiming for a Work That Transcends the Moment . In: The New York Times . December 20, 2008, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed July 18, 2019]).
  8. ↑ a b c Katharine Q. Seelye: Poet Chosen for Inauguration Is Aiming for a Work That Transcends the Moment . In: The New York Times , December 21, 2008. Retrieved January 15, 2009. 
  9. ↑ a b c Michigan Detroit: Biography Today . Omnigraphics, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7808-1051-8 , pp. 10 .
  10. ↑ a b Michigan Detroit: Biography Today . Omnigraphics, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7808-1051-8 , pp. 10-11 .
  11. ↑ a b Yale Professor Elizabeth Alexander Named Inaugural Poet. (No longer available online.) In: n: Yale Bulletin, Yale University. December 19, 2008, archived from the original on July 9, 2010 ; accessed on July 22, 2019 (English).
  12. ↑ Larry Milstein, Emma Platoff 2:04 am, Sep 18, 2015: Elizabeth Alexander, poet and professor, to depart for Columbia. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Michigan Detroit: Biography Today . Omnigraphics, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7808-1051-8 , pp. 11 .
  14. ↑ Quantrell award: Elizabeth Alexander. Retrieved August 4, 2019 .
  15. ↑ a b Michigan Detroit: Biography Today . Omnigraphics, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7808-1051-8 , pp. 12 .
  16. ^ Jackson Poetry Prize. February 12, 2008, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  17. ^ Academy of American Poets: About Elizabeth Alexander | Academy of American Poets. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  18. ^ Corydon Ireland: Radcliffe Fellow, poet Elizabeth Alexander reads , Harvard University Gazette Online. May 8, 2008. Archived from the original on May 11, 2008. Retrieved January 15, 2009. 
  19. ↑ Renowned Poet and Scholar Elizabeth Alexander Joins Faculty | Department of English and Comparative Literature. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Yale awards honorary degrees to 10 individuals for their achievements. May 20, 2018, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  21. ↑ New 2019 Academy Members Announced. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Elizabeth Alexander: Biography and CV . Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. Retrieved January 15, 2009.
  23. ↑ a b Jay Parini: Why Obama chose Elizabeth Alexander for his inauguration . In: The Guardian . December 18, 2008, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed July 29, 2019]).
  24. ^ Lifetime - Elizabeth Alexander . Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  25. ^ A b c Michael E. Ruane: Selection Provides Civil Rights Symmetry. The Washington Post, December 18, 2008, accessed August 2, 2019 .
  26. ^ Mary Schmich: Big stage amplifies poet's critics . In: Chicago Tribune , January 25, 2009. 
  27. ↑ Star Tribune . . Archived from the original on January 23, 2009. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  28. ↑ Elizabeth Alexander: A Poet's Tale from Obama's First Inaugural . January 17, 2017, ISSN  0028-792X ( newyorker.com [accessed August 2, 2019]).
  29. ^ Faces of America, American series, PBS March 3, 2010, Season 1, Episode 4
  30. ^ Academy of American Poets: About Elizabeth Alexander | Academy of American Poets. Retrieved August 2, 2019 .
  31. ↑ Elizabeth Alexander: Lottery Tickets . February 2, 2015, ISSN  0028-792X ( newyorker.com [accessed August 4, 2019]).
  32. ^ The Economist (ed.): How to remember. Review of The Light of the World. tape 415 , no. 8933 , April 11, 2015, p. 75-76 .
  33. ↑ Andrea Gollin: Review: Elizabeth Alexander's 'The Light of the World'. Miami Herald, May 1, 2015, accessed August 4, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Alexander, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American poet, essayist, and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Harlem