Inaugural Poet

Yesterday, I heard Elizabeth Alexander on NPR. She is the Inaugural Poet and a Professor of African-American Studies at Yale.

I loved this poem of hers that she'd read aloud on air - especially the part about "what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details...".

So inspiring. My eyes are wide open for inspiration as I venture into my new studio in 2009.

Here's her poem:

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?