American Sublime: Poems

by Elizabeth Alexander

A brilliant new collection by Elizabeth Alexander, whose "poems bristle with the irresistible quality of a world seen fresh" (Rita Dove, The Washington Post)

Too many people have seen too much
and lived to tell, or not tell, or tell
with their silent, patterned bodies,
their glass eyes, gone legs, flower-printed flesh . . .
-from "Notes From"

In her fourth remarkable collection, Elizabeth Alexander voices the outcries, dreams, and histories of an African American tradition that goes back to the slave rebellion on the Amistad and to the artists' canvases of nineteenth-century America. In persona poems, historical narratives, jazz riffs, sonnets, elegies, and a sequence of ars poetica, American Sublime is Alexander's most vivid and varied collection and affirms her place as one of America's most lively and gifted writers.

"Alexander is an unusual thing, a sensualist of history, a romanticist of race. She weaves biography, history, experience, pop culture and dream. Her poems make the public and private dance together." --Chicago Tribune

Genres: Poetry, Anti Racist, History, African American, Womens

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Elizabeth Alexander is a Quantrell Award-winning American poet, essayist, playwright, university professor, and scholar of African-American literature and culture. She teaches English language/literature, African-American literature, and gender studies at Yale University. Alexander was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard during the 2007-08 academic year.

Alexander's poems, short stories, and critical writings have been widely published in such journals and periodicals as The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Village Voice, The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Her play Diva Studies, which was performed at Yale's School of Drama, garnered her a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship as well as an Illinois Arts Council award.

On December 17th, 2008 it was announced that she will compose a poem which she shall recite at the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009.

Reviews

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this poetry collection by Elizabeth Alexander while waiting for my copy of her memoir, which I'm currently reading. I found these poems brilliant, interesting narratives of African-American history and culture.

The following poem was especially thought-provoking given the current police violence against black Americans:

Smile

When I see a black man smiling
like that, nodding and smiling
with both hands visible, mouthing

"Yes, Officer," across the street,
I think of my father, who taught us
the words "cooperate," "officer,"

This poem was one of my favourites:

Absence

In the absence of women on board,
when the ship reached the point where no landmass
was visible in any direction
and the funk had begun to accrue--
human funk, spirit funk, soul funk--who
commenced the moaning? Who first hummed that deep
sound from empty bowels, roiling stomachs
from back of the frantically thumping heart?"

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe
...
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?

May 10, 20

* Reading the work of someone who's still alive. Thrilling.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

this would have been three stars, but I like the third section (Amistad) and it contains one of my favorite lines: "Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)/is the human voice,//and are we not of interest to each other?"

[Greg Bem · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of sequences. Alexander's approach to Amistad is particularly powerful.

[Aedan Lombardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25, think if I was better read or more knowledgeable about history would have been 4.5 or 5 but felt like I was missing something for sections of this. Shout out New Haven

[Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not every poem in here resonated with me. I didn’t particularly like every poem. But those that I did were excellent. More than once I excitedly shared a poem in here with a friend or family member. I enjoyed reflecting on this perspective of America.

[Alarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating may be lower than I expected for Alexander’s book simply because I ‘d just read Citizen by Claudia Rankine. I’d likely had more than my fill of racism for the week, but I also didn’t feel as pulled into these poems as I have by Rankine, Natasha Trethewey, C. Dale Young, Kevin Young, Langston Hughes, and more. Many of these poems were too listy to me.

However, I also admired quite a few, particularly in the section titled “Amistad,” about a rebellion on a Spanish slave ship and the trial of rebels. Amazingly, the kidnapped slaves (defended by John Quincy Adams) were returned to Africa. In “Connecticut,” she begins, “They squint from shore/at scarlet-shirted blackamoors./… dressed in what they found/in the dry goods barrels.” The poem ends, “The Africans squint/at the trees not their trees/at shore not their shore.”

My favorite poem, “Ode,” has universal appeal:

“I love all the mom bodies at the beach,
the tummies, the one-piece bathing suits,
the bosoms that slope, the wide nice bottoms,…”

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection by an outstanding poet. There is so much to enjoy here and I really wish that I was more engaged with poetry so that I could get at the depth of the poems. Still, even on the surface, these are deep, inviting poems that show you struggle and determination and life at its most trying and most joyful. In particular, there is a subset of poems that deal specifically with Amistad that are very engaging from a historical aspect. I look forward to reading more of Alexander's work.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cried listening to her inaugurate President Obama with loving, challenging words in 2009 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6fC...). (Sadly, those words today sound to me accusatory.) Her poems in this collection documenting cultural vernacular are fabulous. Her series on the Amistadt story is incredible. Listen to her hour-long interview on the radio podcast "On Being" (http://www.onbeing.org/program/elizab...).

[Marisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me first say that I find poetry extremely difficult to judge. No matter my personal opinions of this work, I believe Alexander is a strong, eloquent writer.

Her poems were hit-or-miss for me, but mostly, I enjoyed how personal they were. From beginning to end, I thought felt that the poems improved. Section III Amistad consisted of my favorite poems since they centered on a specific historical event.

[Izetta Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection broke my heart open. It is so beautiful and smart, joyful and mournful. Alexander is a marvelous talent. I adore what she has created. This collection will stay with me for the rest of my life. And I know I will return to these poems over and over again.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no easy summation, but the closing lines from "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe" come close:
Poetry . . . / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite line of the entire collection, which is from “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”: "Poetry (and now my voice is raising)// is not all love, love, love." YES!

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Verses of dire necessity for the times we live in, when history is ignored and marginalized and the things we hear and see with our eyes and ears still result in acquittals.

[Janée Baugher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some ekphrastic poems and some ars poetica poems. She's a poet deft at the art of compression! Students should read this collection to study concision. Nice work, brava.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid volume of poetry. At times life changing, at times more meditative. Recommended for those who enjoy poetry volumes and those looking to read and experience diverse writers.

[Ella Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

To anyone reading- give this collection its time and you will find it undeniably living up to its title: terrifying, moving, and leaving you with a feeling like falling(soaring) through American grief and horror and tragedy.

Personally Part I, American Blue, didn't appeal until the later poems, but by the end of Ars Poetica, I was fully invested. I also think that this perspective is in part attributed to the fact that my American experience doesn't resonate with the same kind of domestic experiences that Alexander conveys. I'm Greek, Midwestern white, and Chinese-Malay, so the closest thing I have to the sort of warmth and maternal premonition of disaster is the feeling of cooking Greek food with my yiayia. As a result, while I enjoy certain poems from this section (notably "Stray", "First Word of the Man for the Dead", and "Notes From"), it likely didn't resonate with me as it would've for someone with a more similar experience. Ars Poetica however resonated deeply with me and illustrated the incredible talent of Alexander to me more clearly even than her long list of accolades. I particularly liked "Christening" and "Patriarchy" though this section was, at least to me, a lot more impactful.

The second to last section of this collection focuses on the historical tragedy of the Amistad, or rather the tragedy of the enslaved people's betrayal and maltreatment after their initial success. I enjoyed this section immensely(my favorites were "Absence", "Other Congo", and "Cinque Redux"), and found myself grieving these long-dead people like dear friends. I don't often feel grief over fictional characters, that sort of empathy doesn't come naturally to me, yet Alexander pulled it from me over the course of this collection with extraordinary skill.

The final (titular) section, American Sublime, was incredible. It was only two poems long, but still managed to leave a gut-wrenching impact, especially "Tanners Annunciation".

Anyway, TLDR, a beautiful collection that builds in a way so natural and monumental that you won't realize until the very end just how much you want to scream in rage, agony, and love.

[Pree Cole]

American Sublime by poet Elizabeth Alexander is a challenging and dense book that uses poetry to dive into intricate and thought-provoking topics such as race and religion, as read in the poem “Ars Poetica #56 “BullFrogs Was Falling Out of the Sky”” when stating, “The Bible, the Bible is black.” (49) The poet uses the well known style of Ars Poetica to further explain the art of poetry itself, providing varied perspectives of victims who experienced racial discrimination and slavery in its prime. The demanding nature of the book forces readers to dig deep into its imagery.

Ideas of discrimination are common when reading American sublime. Ars Poetica #92: Marcus Garvey on Elocution” (47) focuses on the idea of perfection and what it means to be a ‘good’ leader. "An untidy leader is always a failure” states Alexander, grappling with the idea of acceptance and fear of discrimination because of racial differences. Where these themes are widely felt in today’s world, a strong knowledge of African American history and culture would help the reader better grasp the complexities that Alexander has added throughout her writing. As various poems require background knowledge of the subject to make up for the lack of context. When reading this book, I was encouraged to take a step outside my everyday life to experience and empathize with the many lives that were represented. This greatly deepened my understanding of African American history that often isn't covered in your standard history textbook.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection, the poet has gathered persona poems, catalog verses, found poems, sonnets, and elegies about the experience of being an African-American woman and one of the Underground in the post-post-postcolonial United States, which illuminate the well-chosen title. The book also features a section of ars poetica about poets and the making of poetry, plus a sequence of historical narratives about the Amistad slave rebellion and its aftermath. Many of the poems seem like they’re written for an academic audience, and perhaps the Guggenheim Foundation that supported the project, which might account for their arcane references and scholarly tone. The Notes section includes some historical background about the Amistad incident, which is helpful but not quite enough to serve as a cipher for the related poems.

Favorite Poems:
“Little Slave Narrative #1: Master”
“Ellipsis”
“Claustrous Euphobia”
“Black Poets Talk about the Dead”
“Notes From”
“Ars Poetica #1,002: Rally”
“Ars Poetica #92: Marcus Garvey on Elocution”
“Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”
“Absence”
“Approach”
“Waiting for Cinque to Speak”
“American Sublime”

[Kassy Lee]

Elizabeth Alexander's fourth collection fixes her graceful and perspicacious eye on American history, love, spirituality, and intimacy. Through myriad voices, persona poems, and received forms, Alexander weaves a web of transformation and American heritage. The collection is composed of four sections, three of which could be a chapbook in their own right. One section is composed of ars poetica poems that ask, "are we not of interest to each other?" Another section creates a polyvocal poetic account of the famous Amistad trial which formed an essential moral debate of antebellum America. This collection left me with an open heart and broader knowledge of what it means to be an American. It asks all the right questions.

[J.Istsfor Manity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexander’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize nominated poetry collection, four years before she famously recited the inaugural poem at President Obama’s first inauguration.

The volume is sectioned into four parts: “American Blue,” “Ars Poetica,” “Amistad,” and “American Sublime.” The “Amistad” section is a recounting of the travails on the eponymously named Spanish slave ship and its aftermath.

Alexander’s poems are at once evocative, imagistic, personal, universal, and steeped in American history. Flash cuts from slavers, Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk, to Etheridge Knight and beyond. / Ebook, 02/01/21.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for the 2025 Sealey Challenge. My favorite parts were “Tanner’s Annunciation,” the poem that inspired the cover art (a personal favorite), and Part III, “Amistad,” a series of poems narrating the 1839 slave rebellion aboard the Spanish ship of the same name. Every story about slavery deserves to be heard. This one was new to me, and I’m grateful to now know something of it.

“But a poem is a living thing

made by living creatures
(live voice in a small box)

and as life
it is all that can stand

up to violence.”

- “Ars Poetica No. 1,002: Rally”

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really smart poetry. Plays with different forms, different voices, different vernaculars. Maybe a more academic feel than most of the poetry I’ve read recently (maybe that sense of being more polished?). Very good.
.
My favorites were:
Tanner’s Annunciation
Ars Poetica no 22: “Whassup G?”
Teacher (which is a villanelle! One of my favorite forms!)

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so sublime, but solid.

[T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some lovely lines here. In Five Elegies: "...The poet Agha Shahid Ali / met that disease and then like a rose / blown open faced his death and died / after asking, in the shape of a poem, / Why must we ever?"

In Ode: "...our bodies say / This is who we are, no, This is what / we have done and continue to do."

In Ars Poetica #1,002: Rally: "People are violent," / ... / ..."Poetry," / I screamed, "Poetry / changes none of that"

And in Ars Poetica #100: I Believe: "Poetry... / is not all love, love, love,"

But perhaps what I like the most is this one:

Stray
Elizabeth Alexander

On the beach, close to sunset, a dog runs
toward us fast, agitated, perhaps feral,
scrounging for anything he can eat.
We pull the children close and let him pass.

Is there such a thing as a stray child? Simon asks.
Like if a mother had a child from her body
but then decided she wanted to be a different child's mother,
what would happen to that first child?

The dog finds a satisfying scrap and calms.
The boys break free and leap from rock to rock.
I was a stray man before I met your mother,
you say, but they have run on and cannot hear you.

How fast they run on, past the dark pool
your voice makes, our arms which hold them back.
I was a stray man before I met you,
you say. This time you are speaking to me.

Cover art Henry Ossawa Tanner's The Annunciation.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

On American Sublime: There were highs and lows, ups and downs, in Elizabeth Alexander's fourth poetry collection (a Pulitzer Prize finalist). To be fair, I believe I would have gotten even more out of her erudite poems if I was less wired to information highway technology and had a slightly better than above average grasp of the specific complexities, narratives, and nuances of African American studies and the challenges of employing a historically imaginative and reconstructive poetics. The following titles represent the poems that stand out in my mind: "Fried Apples," "Autumn Passage," "Ars Poetica #17: First Afro-American Esperantist," "Ars Poetica #2: Christening," "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe," "Approach," "Other Cargo," "American Sublime," and "Tanner's Annunciation."

My penultimate paragraph is about my thankfulness for having read her subversive and reflective poems on the myth and problem-solution of American identity and sublimity. In particular, I wrote a poetic response to her work by reapplying an old-school Pauline-Hsusian technique, the lost and found acrostic poem. For more info on the lost and found acrostic form, email or message me. Or make it up on your own. ^_-

Finally, for the GoodReads record, I really do love her poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration "Praise Song for the Day."

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...

Post-it note: For more buzz, info, reading, and viewing on Elizabeth Alexander, go to her home page.

http://www.elizabethalexander.net

[DilanAc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly short lined poems, often narrative, usually accessible. I am impressed by her variety of subject matter - slavery, art, religion, hair, poetry, food, music. She can command both the high - philosophy, art - and the more quotidian - coconut cake and hair braids. But I wanted more mystery - more nuance. These veer off into polemics too often. They are musical though, the sound of them is often lovely.
I also like the series on the Amistad slave ship. Very skillful to be able to tell a whole story about a historic event through a series of poems.

[Kecia · Rating 4 out of 5]

She'll be reading at Barack Obama's inaugration!!! How could I not want to read her work? I loved this slim volume of poems. My favorite section was Amistad. I requested the movie from the library...I want to know more now. I'm looking forward to the inaugural poem more than ever now.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't care what anyone had to say. I really enjoyed Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration speech. I also loved this collection of poems. I zipped through them while riding the subway out to Brooklyn. Subways + poetry = what could be better?

[Derek Emerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong collection of poetry highlighted by a series of poems about The Amistad, the slave ship taken over by the slaves. The poem, "Cinque Redux" is especially powerful as she reimagines the leader of the revolt considering his legacy with an unapologetic review of his unforgiving character.