Locally-favorite poet to speak at inauguration
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- December
- 17
Elizabeth Alexander, whom some might remember from an event earlier this month at Hudson Valley Writer’s Center and earlier this fall at Reid Castle, will be the inaugural poety at the Jan. 20 ceremony for President Barak Obama. Her publisher, Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minn. confirmed this information this afternoon after news organizations released the information.
The news was circulated through the literary world today on Mediabistro’s posting on Galley Cat citing both Twitter and Washington Post. The Post said the Alexander will be the “fourth poet to read at a swearing in after Robert Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy’s in 1961; Maya Angelou, who read at Clinton’s in 1993; and Miller Williams, who read in 1997, according to government officials.”
Very exciting for poetry fans.
Alexander was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and professor at Yale University during the 2007-08 year. Locally, though, she was a featured speaker in October at Manhattanville College’s Master of Art in Writing Program Meet the Writers literary series which I mentioned in a previous blog. The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center small press, just published her newest chapbook and she read at the Sleepy Hollow center this month.
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on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 5:02 pm by Barbara Nackman.
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We are thrilled to see Elizabeth Alexander’s outstanding work as a poet recognized in this way! Just last Friday night Elizabeth read as part of our Second Friday Cafe reading series, hosted by the Slapering Hol Press, the small press imprint of the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center. SHP published Ms. Alexander’s (with Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon) latest poetry chapbook “Poems in Conversation and a Conversation” this year.