Words took center stage Tuesday afternoon when inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander spoke about the power of language to captivate a nation, crystallize history and forge life-long bonds between teacher and student.
Four months after speaking at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., Alexander ventured further south to give a poetry reading to an audience of about 50 at the Nasher Museum of Art at the invitation of Duke President Richard Brodhead, who introduced her. Alexander studied under Brodhead for two semesters as an undergraduate at Yale University, but their shared love of words has kept them close long after she left his classroom.
"In retrospect it seems she must always have been the famous Elizabeth Alexander, but at that time she was one of 20 young people in a class," Brodhead said in an interview after the reading. "She was very smart, very fun to work with, but as time went on it became clear that she had a special way with words and a special affinity for the music of language. We found that taste together, and that became the basis of our friendship."
Reading a sampling of her poems that elicited both laughter and applause, Alexander stunned many in the audience.
"That was one of the best poetry readings I've ever been to, and that's saying something-I've been to a lot," said Reynolds Price, Trinity '55 and James B. Duke professor of English.
Alexander has penned four volumes of poems, a play and a collection of essays over a decades-long flurry of writing. But her long and varied career as a writer took a defining turn when a former colleague from the University of Chicago called her up and asked her if she would write a poem for his inauguration.
"I was excited for about two seconds, and then I started working. The elation was quick," she said with a snap of her fingers in an interview before the reading. "It was the most focused and intense work I've ever done."
Alexander's reading of "Praise Song for the Day" vaulted her into an elite club whose membership consists of Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and Miller Williams, the only other poets who have read their work at a presidential inauguration. Alexander said she was honored that Obama selected her to give poetry a voice at such an historic moment.
"He didn't have to have a poet. He didn't have to give art a place in that moment," she said. "I was certainly not alone on that stage. That was clear as the day. Robert Frost was with me the whole time, all the slaves who built the Capitol were there-less so for me, but they were there for President Obama."
But Alexander noted that the task of the inaugural poem called upon her to write in a manner that differs somewhat from her body of work. To Alexander, poetry is music and imagery-but when writing for Obama, she felt she also had to attend to the undeniable historicity of the day.
"I never think about message when I'm writing a poem. If I want to tell you something, I will go into the classroom, I will write an op-ed," she said. "[The inaugural poem] was a very special chore. It has to serve the occasion in some sort of way. I wanted to think about accessible but not condescending. I wanted each word to be perfect, but I also wanted it to be a poem that no one would stumble or be alienated by inherently."
Poetry rarely experiences the attention it did when Alexander stepped up to the podium on Capitol Hill, and she said she has been humbled by the public's reception of her work.
"I've gotten hundreds and hundreds of letters, and that has been a very wonderful gift," she said. "Maybe poetry phobia is not as widespread as we think.... I feel like I have this secret in my inbox that poetry matters and can be very valuable."
But Alexander said she has felt as though she were "drowning" in the publicity, and she is eager to return to a quieter life of teaching, writing and advocating for poetry on a smaller stage.
Throughout the reading, Alexander reflected on the value she derives from working as a teacher and the gratitude she has for those who have taught her. Although he is not named in the poem, Alexander said "First word of the mass for the dead" is a tribute to the late John Hope Franklin, a scholar whose work has been instructive to her from afar.
"John Hope Franklin was a person who had me convinced that he was going to live forever," she said. "I was not close to him, relatively speaking, but one of his tremendous and powerful human gifts is that he made people feel very, very special."
And before she recited a single verse, Alexander paused to pay tribute to a teacher who has helped to shape her career from its inception to its historic highs.
"[Brodhead] is one of my favorite teachers of life," Alexander said. "Imagine real friendship with a beloved teacher-that is something that's very rare and very special to me."
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