Q & A with Elizabeth Alexander
26 Feb, 2009 - Alissa Wilkinson
From Newsweek: Inauguration poet Elizabeth Alexander – “The arts have a place in conversation”:
What message do you think Obama is sending by including a poet in the ceremony?
It’s that the arts have a place in conversation, that poetry, its distillation, its precision, its mindfulness, models for us a way that we might stop and think and choose our words with care, that we might offer our ideas and experiences to each other with precision and care, I think that’s what poetry shows us.
About the author
Alissa Wilkinson founded The Curator in 2008 and was its editor for two years. She now teaches writing and humanities a The King's College and edits Fieldnotes. She has an MA in humanities and social thought from New York University and will graduate from Seattle Pacific University with an MFA in creative nonfiction in 2013. Her writing has appeared in Christianity Today, Books & Culture, Paste, The Other Journal, Q Ideas, The Gospel Coalition, WORLD, Relevant, and other magazines.
Alissa lives in Brooklyn with her husband Tom in a tiny apartment stuffed with books and photography equipment. She loves sci-fi, scotch, empty notebooks, cheap ramen noodles, and getting lost on purpose in unfamiliar cities.
