Poems in Conversation and a Conversation

by Elizabeth Alexander, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Margo Stever (Editor)

Poetry. "When Alexander and Stefanon scrutinize the variegated surfaces of Romare Bearden's art, the intensity of their gazes gives way to speech. In the blues of 'Reclining Nude,' Stefanon's speaker discovers 'I could hear / her holding / her breath.' Alexander finds images that transmute into 'Flowered dresses. / A woman's holler. River or guitar.' In the hands of these poets, ekphrasis is an act of inquiry, a mode of poetic transformation as well as cultural analysis. For both, the lacunae inherent in acts of reading and looking are openings for empathy, uncertainty, discourse"—Barbara Fischer.

29 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2008

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.