Elizabeth Alexander (poet)
| Elizabeth Alexander | |
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May 30, 1962 Harlem, New York City, United States |
| Occupation | Poet, essayist, playwright |
 "Praise Song for the Day", 2009 Presidential Inauguration, Elizabeth Alexander |
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Keynote Address-Prof. Elizabeth Alexander, IRAAS 20th Anniversary, November 1, 2013 |
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Keynote- Elizabeth Alexander, Towards an Intellectual History of Black Women Conference, April 29, 2011 |
Elizabeth Alexander (born May 30, 1962) is an American poet, essayist, playwright. Alexander is the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry and a Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of African American Studies, at Yale University.
Alexander was born in Harlem, 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. and Adele (Logan) Alexander, a teacher of African-American women's history at George Washington University and writer. Her brother Mark C. Alexander was a senior adviser to the Barack Obama presidential campaign and a member of the president-elect's transition team. After she was born, the family moved to Washington, D.C. She was just a toddler when her parents brought her in March 1963 to the March on Washington, site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous I Have A Dream speech. Alexander recalled that "Politics was in the drinking water at my house". She also took ballet as a child.
She was educated at Sidwell Friends School, and graduated in 1980. From there she went to Yale University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1984. She studied poetry at Boston University under Derek Walcott and got her Master's in 1987. Her mother said to her, "That poet you love, Derek Walcott, is teaching at Boston University. Why don't you apply?" Alexander originally entered studying fiction writing, but Walcott looked at her diary and saw the poetry potential. Alexander said, "He gave me a huge gift. He took a cluster of words and he lineated it. And I saw it."
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