{"id":25,"date":"2020-07-30T14:14:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/30\/a-poem-for-thursday-92\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T20:19:49","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T20:19:49","slug":"a-poem-for-thursday-92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/30\/a-poem-for-thursday-92\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for Thursday #92"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Photo by\u00a0<\/span>Taylor Wright<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0<\/span>Unsplash<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Elizabeth Alexander is an American poet, essayist, and playwright. Alexander’s poems concentrate on the subjects of race, politics, motherhood, and history. Alexander was asked to read one of her poems at Barack Obama’s inauguration. She is only the fourth poet ever asked to read at an inauguration. One of her books was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and she has won many awards and honors.<\/p>\n

Poetry, I tell my students,<\/i>
\nis idiosyncratic. Poetry<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nis where we are ourselves<\/i>
\n(though Sterling Brown said<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\n“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I'”),<\/i>
\ndigging in the clam flats<\/i><\/p>\n

for the shell that snaps,<\/i>
\nemptying the proverbial pocketbook.<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nPoetry is what you find<\/i>
\nin the dirt in the counter,<\/i><\/p>\n

overhearing on the bus, God<\/i>
\nin the details, the only way<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nto get from here to there.<\/i>
\nPoetry (and now my voice is rising)<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nis not all love, love, love,<\/i>
\nand I’m sorry the dog died.<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nPoetry (here I hear myself loudest)<\/i>
\nis the human voice,<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nand are we not of interest to each other?<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nArs Poetica #100:\u00a0 I Believe<\/i>
\nElizabeth Alexander<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by\u00a0Taylor Wright\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash Elizabeth Alexander is an American poet, essayist, and playwright. Alexander’s poems concentrate on the subjects of race, politics, motherhood, and history. Alexander was asked to read one of her poems at Barack Obama’s inauguration. She is only the fourth poet ever asked to read at an inauguration. One of her books was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and she has won many awards and honors. 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 counter, overhearing 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? Ars Poetica #100:\u00a0 I Believe Elizabeth Alexander<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem-for-a-thursday"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2451,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions\/2451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}