Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Poet Elizabeth Alexander to Read at Obama Inauguration

Deep Song
Gregg Chadwick
Deep Song
38"x38" oil on linen 2005


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?

-Elizabeth Alexander



Poet Elizabeth Alexander

Elizabeth Alexander Audio Files

1 comment:

Peter Clothier said...

Thanks for posting this one, Gregg. A pleasure to read...