This report from CBS Evening News about poet Elizabeth Alexander also features a concise history of the reading of inaugural poems over the past half century, an event that has occured only three times before.

Our contribution to The Obama Project was inspired by PollTrack's Presidential Map.  We created a color-coded United States map out of cookies which we consumed at the home of our friends  Eleanor and David Antin while watching election night returns. We were incredibly fearful as the evening began but our cookies seemed to work like magic.

Kline's Magic Voodoo Cookies, as we called them, worked! First, Eleanor devoured Florida. As the election night progressed, every contentious state that we preemptively consumed (Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana) fell to the Democrats.  Texas was just too damn big to eat. But Woo-hoo we won the election regardless!

We had such fun gobbling up all the suspect states and cheering when they fell.  Our Obama optimism has not yet waned and while we anticipate many struggles for the country, we feel like we at least have a chance.

© Debby and Larry Kline

© Andrew Lucas

Celebrating Elizabeth Alexander: Above is a video of the poet and cultural critic Elizabeth Alexander reading "Ars Poetica #101: I Believe," from her recent collection, American Sublime, a finalist for the Pulitizer Prize. Alexander is only the fourth poet in the history of the United States to be invited (by President-Elect Obama) to deliver a poem at an inauguration. Below is an excerpt from the University of Michigan Press website, which has just uploaded a fine celebration (and introduction for readers not familiar with her work) of Alexander. The webpage also includes a tribute to the poet from our own political director, Maurice Berger.

INAUGURATION 2009

Turn away from nothing. Face the sun.
Evolve at any cost.
From 10. Unfinished Tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks, Power & Possibility

Acclaimed poet and University of Michigan Press author Elizabeth Alexander will on January 20th become one of just four poets in the history of this country to have their poems included in a presidential inauguration. She will read a new poem at the ceremony swearing in President-elect Barack Obama, and we here at the UM Press could not be more proud. Congratulations, Professor! 

About Elizabeth Alexander

Elizabeth Alexander was born in Harlem, New York City, and grew up in Washington, DC. She received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University (where she studied with acclaimed West Indies poet Derek Walcott), and the Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. Alexander has read her poetry and lectured on African-American literature and culture across the country and abroad.

She has published four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001) and, most recently, American Sublime (2005), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. American Sublime was chosen to be one of the 25 Notable Books of 2005 by the American Library Association, which called it "sparkling with humanity and unexpected grace." Her collection of essays, The Black Interior, was published in 2004.

In 2006, she contributed a poem and an introduction to Gathering Ground, the University of Michigan Press compilation of 10 years of work from the acclaimed Cave Canem Foundation for African-American poets, where she serves as a faculty member. In 2007, UM Press published Power & Possibility as part of its Poets on Poetry series. The book is Alexander's collection of her essays, reviews and interviews that study and comment on American literature and culture.

Her short stories and critical prose have been widely published in such periodicals and journals as Signs, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Village Voice, The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Her poems are anthologized in dozens of collections.

Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago, the George Kent Award, given by Gwendolyn Brooks, and a Guggenheim fellowship. In 2007 Alexander won the first annual $50,000 Jackson Prize for Poetry, which honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit. She is an inaugural recipient of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that "contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954."

Alexander's play, "Diva Studies," was produced at the Yale School of Drama in May 1996, and she was a dramaturge for Anna Deavere Smith's play "Twilight" in its original production at the Mark Taper Forum.

She has taught at Haverford College, the University of Chicago, New York University, and Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence and first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College. She spent a year as a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She is presently Professor of African-American Studies and English Literature at Yale University.

Prof. Alexander herself had this to say:

"I'm completely thrilled to have been chosen for this honor," she said in a Yale University interview. "Barack Obama is a man who understands the power and integrity of language. To be asked to turn my own words to this occasion and for this person is all but overwhelming."

"President-elect Obama has put poetry front and center, only the fourth time that this has happened at an inauguration," she told the Wall Street Journal. "It says culture matters, that it's transforming and not merely stirring, that it's fundamental to ways in which we can think about moving forward...

"Poetry, because it is language distilled and because it is also such intensely precise language, provides us with a moment of respite and meditation, moments where we have to stop and listen very carefully to every word."

What others have to say about Elizabeth Alexander:

"President-Elect Obama has made a wise choice in Elizabeth Alexander, a poet of exceptional eloquence, depth, and grace. In the tradition of James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, and Toni Morrison, she is equally adept as literary writer, social observer, and cultural critic. Her inaugural poem will no doubt inspire our nation in this troubled and extraordinary time."
—Maurice Berger, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland Baltimore County

"Elizabeth Alexander's verse sings the plight and the power of those who struggle to survive. The smallest details of daily life, the resounding echoes of epochs, find their voices in her work. Alexander has woken us to a dream of deliverance that we share with language and music..."
—Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University

"Elizabeth Alexander is one of the brightest stars in our literary sky, a poet of poise and power. Her sharp intelligence and her knowledge of the contemporary arts make her a superb, invaluable commentator on the American scene...With her considerable poetic skills and her complex vision of American history and culture, Elizabeth Alexander is an inspired choice to play such a prominent role in the presidential inauguration."
—Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University

Twas the eve of the future and all through the world
An electoral battle anxiously swirled.
The votes were all marked with unusual care
And still there were cases of ballot despair—
Whole graveyards were voting, or Elvis was there.
Polls said the numbers were awfully tight.
Too close to call, a tie, then not quite. 
From Georgia to Texas to Oregon too,
Red on one side, the other in blue,
Every constituency was poised to sue. 
McCain had curled up for just one more nap,
Biden was prudently shutting his trap.
In Alaska, the Palins were snug in their beds, 
While visions of rapture danced in their heads. 
But Barack Obama pressed on through the night,
Calling for change, and to do what is right. 
When November 4th dawned, he had fought the good fight.
The people came out in state after state,
They lined up at daybreak, they voted till late.
They voted in hoards and voted some more,
They voted in numbers unseen heretofore. 
"Begone Dubya! and Cheney! and Condi, you vixen!
Out, Chertoff! Off, Rove! Stop the bombin’ and blitzin’!
To the edge of the gangplank, the waterboards call!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
Despite being black or his name being funny,
Despite fears he was secretly Muslim—a Sunni?-- 
The results that came in left nothing to spin:
Obama had managed to win, baby, win.
Destruction averted, the world’s back in line.
There’s much to be done, but  we’ll all be fine.  
The Klieg lights shining in Grant Park that night
Gave the luster of day to the faces so bright. 
So relieved of their fears, so glistening with tears,  
A heartfelt goodbye to the last eight dreadful years.

Patricia J. Williams is James L. Dohr Professor of Law, Columbia University Law School. She has published widely in the areas of race, gender, and law, film, culture, legal theory and history. She is a columnist for The Nation and the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious MacArthur fellowship.

© Bess Greenberg

© Bess Greenberg

Back in 1995 a distinguished committee of colleagues and I, perhaps presumptuously, determined to define and rank the basic elements of democracy—in preparation for a handbook we were working on. Though the list contained the obvious essentials, like the rule of law, freedom of the press, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens, we ranked first “trust, goodwill and idealism.” I would be more succinct now and simply call that first imperative hope.  

        
President- elect Obama speaks of the audacity of hope—and I invite you to reflect on the necessity for hope-- in building, sustaining and, yes, healing a democratic society.  Acts of terrorism, more often than not, dependent on men and women willing to die for their cause, differ from democratic process dramatically—and tragically, because they are acts of hopelessness.  Hope ranges from cautious optimism to instrumental optimism to rose-colored-glasses optimism—maybe from the sublime to the ridiculous—or at least from the sensible to the naive.

I am in praise of and advocate for hope because it is a necessity for progressive change. It gives us the audacity to insist on the rule of law. We can only opt for this enlightened approach to governance because we hope and trust that our neighbors as well as we will obey the laws that are created by and for the people. We can only promote the free flow of ideas in the press and elsewhere because we trust that for the most part we will hear the truths and opinions of our very diverse population and we can endure and benefit from a very wide range of views.

Terrorism is the instrument of the hopeless and powerless. It requires a lot of ingenuity and yes, audacity, but it is at the same time, nihilism incarnate--killing for killing’s sake out of the despair generated by systems that have no place for citizens.  Citizens thrive and build societies that thrive by virtue of their law-given rights and responsibilities. There is no more effective way to make the changes that stretch a society, helping it to come closer to such ideals as “liberty and justice for all.”

The Obama presidency comes at the best and worst of times. Perhaps every generation finds itself in that Dickensian predicament. We Americans have taken an important step forward not only by electing our first African American president, but by electing a man of incomparable intelligence and integrity. And, at the same time, we find ourselves in our worst economic downturn since the great depression.  And so we are giving our new president a daunting challenge—with the hope that he will deliver us into an era of promise.

Obama brings hope to Americans and, indeed, to the world. We hope that the tragedies of the last decades, born of many factors, including the collapse of the old world order, which left us, in the words of philosopher Hannah Arendt, “between the no longer and the not yet,” will be replaced by an era of promise to all the world’s people. The candidate of change —the leader of promise—is the beginning of our “new hope”—a cautious optimism founded in our belief in democracy and in an extraordinary leader.

But that “new hope” will be to naught if it does not energize and inspire us to seize the moment by rededicating ourselves to what the late Justice Louis Brandeis termed the most important job in our democracy—that of the citizen. Obama has made it clear that the task ahead-- running this country and leading the world—is not a one man job. It is our job, Democracy is not about charismatic leaders alone—it is played out in the every day actions of people like us enjoying our rights as individuals and assuming the responsibilities of citizenship.

© Oliver Wasow

"The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States simply means that everything I could hope for as an African American woman of the boomer generation has been fulfilled and I can die happy."
--Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, Curator, Museum of Art and Design, New York

Obama's election means to me: that at last we have a president who speaks and acts as though he knows the importance of the concept of our "common good."  Common means addressing the specific interests of the public in relation each to the other, e.g. his speech of March 18, 2008 in which he defended the truth of African American suffering of injustice in our history but also the unjust suffering of white working-class Americans. Long ago, the social psychologist G.H. Mead said: "Democracy depends upon the ability of the voter, once inside the voting booth, to vote for someone else's interests in addition to their own." Also, my hope it that in Obama we will get loose from the superficial uses of the words "left" and "right" in describing policy alternatives, as well as "liberal" and "conservative."  We must get away from using all four of these words as abstractions which conceal human realities of  need and responsibility.  Common good also means the human common good worldwide. The new global world will not permit us to indulge in a facile politics which tosses off  "America first" as either a realistic or a moral stance towards our world neighbors.

Donald W. Shriver, Jr. is president emeritus of the Union Theological Seminary in New York