Elizabeth Alexander

Elizabeth Alexander was born in New York City and grew up in Washington, DC. She received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University, and the Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. Alexander has read her poetry and lectured on African-American literature and culture across the country and abroad. She has published four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001) and, most recently, American Sublime (2005), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her collection of essays, The Black Interior, was published in 2004. Her short stories and critical prose have been widely published in such periodicals and journals as Signs, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Village Voice, The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Her poems are anthologized in dozens of collections. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago, the George Kent Award, given by Gwendolyn Brooks, and a Guggenheim fellowship. She is an inaugural recipient of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.” Alexander's play, "Diva Studies," was produced at the Yale School of Drama in May 1996, and she was a dramaturge for Anna Deavere Smith’s play “Twilight” in its original production at the Mark Taper Forum. She has taught at Haverford College, the University of Chicago, New York University, and Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence and first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College. She is presently Professor of African-American Studies at Yale University.

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Elizabeth Alexander

114 Upland Road
Cambridge, MA 02140

Phone: (203) 777-6699
Fax: (203) 776-9055
E-mail: elizabeth_alexander@radcliffe.edu

CURRENT POSITION	Professor, African-American Studies and American Studies, Yale University Mildred Londa Weisman Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2007-2008
EDUCATION	BA, 1984, Yale University MA, 1987, Boston University Ph.D., 1992, University of Pennsylvania
TEACHING	Yale University, English and African-American Studies, 2000 to date Napa Valley Writers Workshop, Summer 2007 University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2006 Arvon Foundation Workshop, Yorkshire, England, Spring 2004 Yale University Summer School, 2002 New York University, Graduate Creative Writing Program, Fall 2001, Fall 2003 Smith College, Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in Residence, 1997-1999 First Director of The Poetry Center at Smith College, 1997-1999 Assistant Professor, University of Chicago, 1991 to 1997 Cave Canem Poetry Workshop, Summer 1996 to date Yale University, Spring 1996 Northwestern University, Fall 1995 Dunbar Vocational High School, N.E.H.-funded project on Gwendolyn Brooks, Spring 1993 Guild Complex, Chicago, IL, Summer 1992 Wesleyan University Summer Writer's Conference, 1991 Haverford College, 1990-1 Germantown Friends School, Spring 1988 and 1989 University of Pennsylvania (freshman English seminars), 1987-8 Boston University (undergraduate creative writing seminar), 1985
BOOKS	“Power and Possibility: Essay, Reviews, Interviews,” University of Michigan Press, Poets on Poetry Series, 2007 “Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color,” (with Marilyn Nelson) Front Street Press, 2007 “American Blue: Selected Poems,” Bloodaxe Books (U.K.), 2006 “American Sublime,” Graywolf Press, 2005. (American Library Association 25 Notable Books of the Year, Pulitzer Prize finalist) “The Black Interior: Essays,” Graywolf Press, 2004 (Finalist for best non-fiction, Hurston-Wright Foundation, 2005) “Antebellum Dream Book,” Graywolf Press, 2001 (Village Voice 25 Best Books of 2001) “Body of Life,” Tia Chucha Press, 1996 “The Venus Hottentot,” University Press of Virginia, Callaloo Poetry Series, 1990. Reissued by Graywolf Press, 2004
EDITED	“The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks,” ed. and introduction, Library of America “American Poetry Project,” 2005 “Love’s Instruments” by Melvin Dixon, introduction by Elizabeth Alexander. Tia Chucha Press, 1995
PLAYS	“Diva Studies” (directing thesis commissioned by Yale School of Drama, May 1996) Collaborator, “Doppler Incident,” conceived and directed by Kerry James Marshall, BAM/New Wave Festival, New York City, 1997
WORKS IN PROGRESS	“Lost Canon of Twentieth Century African-American Poets: An Anthology” (ed. and introduction) “New Thoughts on Black Experimental Poetry” (critical prose) “Black Herman” (jazz opera libretto)
HONORS & FELLOWSHIPS	Inaugural recipient, Jackson Poetry Prize, $50,000. Grant by anonymous nomination, administered by Poets and Writers, Spring 2007 Alphonse Fletcher, Sr., Fellowship, 2005 (inaugural year of the program) John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 2002 Visiting Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, 1999-2000. Fellow, 2005-8 Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Chicago, 1997 Chicago Humanities Institute Fellowship, 1993-94 Fellow, Ragdale Foundation, Summer 1994 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, 1992 Fellow, Corporation of Yaddo, Summers 1990 and 1991 Scholar-in-Residence, Haverford College, 1990-91
POETRY ANTHOLOGIES (selected)	“The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry,” ed. Arnold Rampersad, 2005 “Jazz Poems,” ed. Kevin Young, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005 “Cabin Fever: Poets at Joaquin Miller’s Cabin 1984-2001,” ed. Jacklyn W. Potter et.al., The Word Works, 2003 “Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali,” ed. Robert Hedin and Michael Waters, Southern Illinois University Press, 2004 “Blues Poems,” ed. Kevin Young, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004 “Poems to Set You Free,” ed. Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Velez, Warner Books, 2003 “Poems for America: 125 Poems That Celebrate The American Experience,” ed. Carmela Ciuraru, Scribner, 2002 “The Poetry Anthology 1912-2002,” ed. Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young, Ivan R. Dee, 2002 “Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art,” ed. Medina Bashir Lansana, Third World Press, 2002 “Bright Pages: Yale Writers 1701-2001,” ed. J.D. McClatchy, Yale University Press 2001 “Words for Images: A Gallery of Poems,” ed. John Hollander and Joanna Weber, Yale University Press, 2001 “Motion: American Sports Poems,” ed. Noah Blaustein, University of Iowa Press, 2001 “Step Into A World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature,” ed. Kevin Powell, Wiley, 2000 “American Poetry: The Next Generation,” ed. Gerald Costanzo and Jim Daniels, Carnegie-Mellon, 2000 “Giant Steps: The New Generation of African-American Writing,” ed. Kevin Young, HarperCollins, 2000 “The Vintage Book of African-American Poetry,” ed. Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton, Vintage, 2000 “The New American Poets: A Breadloaf Anthology,” ed. Michael Collier Middlebury/New England, 2000 “Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation,” ed. Paula Gemin and Pamela Sergi, University Press of Iowa, 1999 “Powerlines: Guild Complex Anthology,” ed. Michael Warr, Luis Rodriguez, and Julie Parson-Nesbit, Tia Chucha Press, 1999 “Identity Lessons,” ed. Maria Mazzioti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan, Penguin, 1999. “Rebel Angels: 25 New Formalists,” ed. Mark Jarman, ANTHOLOGIES Story Line Press, 1996 “The Garden Thrives: Twentieth Century African-American Poetry,” ed. Clarence Major, HarperCollins, 1996 “The Norton Introduction to Literature,” Sixth Edition, 1995 “The Harper Anthology of American Literature,” 1994 “On the Verge,” ed. Thomas Sayers Ellis, Agni Press, 1994 “I Hear a Symphony: African-American Writers on Love,” ed. Paula Woods and Felix Liddell, Doubleday, 1994, “The Book of Eros,” ed. Lily Pond and Richard Russo, Harmony Books, 1995 “In Search of Color Everywhere,” ed. Ethelbert Miller, Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 1994 “A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Conspicuous Form by Women”,” ed. Annie Finch, Storyline Press, 1994 “Every Shut-Eye Ain’t Asleep,” ed. Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton, Little, Brown, 1994 “In the Tradition,” eds. Ras Baraka and Kevin Powell, Harlem River Press, 1993 “A New Geography of Poets,” ed. Edward Field, University of Arkansas Press, 1992
ESSAYS (selected)	“Second Spring,” Meridel LeSeuer essay, Water*Stone, Fall 2007 “Contemporary African-American Poetics,” with Harryette Mullen, in “Cave Canem Tenth Anniversary Anthology,” ed. Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, University of Michigan Press 2006 “The Negro Digs Up Her Past,” SAQ, Fall 2005 “Some White Men,” in Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, ed. Emily Bernard, HarperCollins, 2004 “The Genius of Romare Bearden,” in Something All Our Own: The Grant Hill Collection of African-American Art, ed. Alvia Wardlaw, Duke University Press, 2003 “‘The Space Between’: On Etheridge Knight” in Poetry Speaks, ed. Elise Paschen and Rebecca Presson Mosby, Sourcebooks, Inc., 2001 “Meditations on ‘Mecca’: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Responsibilities of the Black Poet,” in By Herself, Women Reclaim Poetry, ed. Molly McQuade, Graywolf Press, 2000. Also published in Associated Writing Programs Chronicle, March 2000 “Real/Not Real,” catalogue essay, “Real: Six Black Figurative Painters,” Bass Museum of Art, Miami, 1996 “A Black Man Says ‘Sorbet,’” catalogue essay, Two Cents: The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Poetry of Kevin Young, Miami-Dade Community College Wolfson Galleries, 1995 “We Must Be About our Fathers ‘Business’: Anna Julia Cooper and the In-corporation of the Turn-of-the-Century Aframerican Intellectual,” Signs, (Winter 1994) “Memory, Community, Voice: African-American Poetry in the Age of AIDS,” Callaloo (Spring 1994) “‘Coming out Blackened and Whole’: Fragmentation and Reintegration in Audre Lorde’s Zami and The Cancer Journals,” American Literary History (Winter 1994) “‘We’re Gonna Deconstruct Your Life!’: The Making and Un-Making of the Black Bourgeois Patriarch in Ricochet,” in Representing Black Men, ed. Marcellus Blount and George P. Cunningham, Routledge, 1996 “‘Can you Be BLACK and Look at This?’: Reading the Rodney King Video(s),” in Public Culture (Fall 1994), and Whitney Museum, Black Male, 1994 “Walt Whitman and Gwendolyn Brooks,” Voice Literary Supplement, April 1994 “Living in the Jet Stream,” Voice Literary Supplement, February 1994 “The Anxiety of Authority,” The Women's Review of Books, February 1994
POETRY (selected)	“Literary Imagination”, Spring 2006 “SAQ”, forthcoming Fall 2005 “Ploughshares”, Spring 2004 “Water-Stone Review”, Fall 2003 “The New Yorker”, November 2002, January 2003, October 2004 “Anuario Hispanoamericano de Poesia”, 2002 “Antioch Review”, 2002 “Ploughshares”, 2002 “TriQuarterly”, 2002 “Crab Orchard Review”, Summer 2001 “Shenandoah”, Vol.50 No.3, 2000 “TriQuarterly”, Winter 2000 “Fence”, Spring/Summer 2000 “The Chicago Review”, Volume 46 #1, 2000 “The Boston Review”, Spring 2000 “Callaloo”, Spring 2000 “Hanging Loose 75”, 1999 “Drumvoices Review”, Fall 1999 “The Massachusetts Review”, Fall 1998 “The Minnesota Review”, Fall 1998 “The Crab Orchard Review”, Fall 1998 “The American Voice”, Summer 1998 “Gargoyle”, Winter 1996 “Ploughshares”, Spring 1996 “Word”, Summer 1995 “The Chicago Review”, Fall 1995 “Voice Literary Supplement”, February 1995 “Voice Literary Supplement”, September 1994 “The Chicago Review”, Summer 1994 “Eyeball”, Winter 1994 “The Kenyon Review”, Winter 1994 “Poetry”, February 1994 “Agni”, Spring 1993 “Poetry”, September 1993 “Yellow Silk”, Summer 1993 “The Kenyon Review”, Summer 1993 “The William and Mary Review”, Spring 1993 “Poetry”, May 1992 “Callaloo”, Winter 1991 “The Paris Review”, Winter 1991 “Ms.”, Fall 1991 “Chelsea”, Winter 1990 “The Indiana Review”, Fall 1989 “Black American Literature Forum”, Fall 1989 “Hambone”, Fall 1989 “Prairie Schooner”, Fall 1989 “Callaloo”, Spring 1989 “The Southern Review”, Summer 1988 “American Poetry Review”, March/April 1988 “Obsidian II”, Winter 1987 “The Southern Review”, Autumn 1987 “The Southern Review”, Summer 1987 “Callaloo”, Winter 1986
FICTION	“The American Voice”, Fall 1988 “Callaloo”, Spring 1988 “The Washington Review”, October/November 1987
BOOK REVIEWS	New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Village Voice, Women’s Review of Books, Black Issues Book Review, 1986 to date
INVITED PAPERS (selected)	“The Ongoing Influence of Paul Laurance Dunbar on 20th Century African-American Poetry,” Dunbar Conference, Stanford University, March 2006 “Re-defining Experimental Black Poetry,” CUNY Graduate Center, March 2005 “Why Amistad, Why Now?: History Poems and the Contemporary Moment,” Yale University, “Why Literature Matters” Conference, April 2005 “The kitchenette, The World: On Gwendolyn Brooks,” Keynote Address, Medgar Evers College, Gwendolyn Brooks Symposium The Windfall Address, Nichols College, Dudley, MA, October 2004 Commencement Speaker, Yale University Black Graduation, May 2004 “Black Alive and Looking Back at You,” Keynote Address, June Jordan Memorial Conference, LaGuardia Community College, May 2003 Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson Scholar-in-Residence Address, Dillard University, New Orleans, February 2003 “Rethinking the Black Female Body,” Keynote Address, “Writing and the Difference ‘Race’ Makes” Conference, Southern Connecticut Community College, September 2002 “Langston Hughes and the Road to “New Negro Poets USA”,” Keynote Address, Langston Hughes and His World Conference, Yale University, February 2002 “The Black Interior,” John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary Study, Duke University, February 2002 “On Black Masculinity,” Princeton Conference on Black Masculinity, November 1997 Keynote Address, “Affirmative Action Babies, Bourgeois Blues,” Unnatural Acts Conference, UC Riverside, Riverside, CA April 1997 “‘The Block’ and Beyond: Bearden, DuBois, and Collage,” Symposium on Romare Bearden, University of Pennsylvania, September 1996 “Writing the Venus Hottentot,” Riverfront Forum, University of Chicago, November 1994 “Memory, Community, Voice: African-American Poetry in the Age of AIDS,” Conference in Honor of Melvin Dixon, CUNY Graduate Center, March 1994; Black Women in the Academy Conference, M.I.T., Jan. 1994 “‘Can you be BLACK and Look at This?’: Reading the Rodney King Video(s),” Midwest Faculty Seminar, University of Chicago, April 1993; Contested Boundaries Conference, University of California-Irvine, May 1993; Society for Cinema Studies Conference, February 1993 “Re-Visions of ‘Two-Ness’: Du Bois and Beyond,” Midwest Faculty Seminar, January 1993 “Issues in Black Women’s Literature,” Mellon Literacy Program, U. of Chicago, October 1992 “On Romare Bearden,” UCLA, Wight Art Gallery, Jan. 1992 “New Approaches for Teaching Afro-American Poetry,” PATHS/PRISM workshop, Philadelphia, PA, 1989
BOARDS	Poetry Society of America The Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University Cave Canem Poetry Workshop
PRIZES	2001, 2000, 1998 Pushcart Prizes for Poetry 1997 Honorable Mention, “Diva Studies,” Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, Women and Theatre Program of ATHE 1997 George Kent Prize for Poetry, awarded by Gwendolyn Brooks 1994 Kenyon Review Prize for Literary Excellence 1993 Illinois Arts Council Literary Award 1992 George Kent Prize, “Poetry” magazine 1990-96 nominations, Pushcart Prize for poetry 1988 nomination, Pushcart Prize for fiction 1986 Larry Neal Writer’s Award for Fiction, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities
ACADEMIC SERVICE	University of Chicago 1991-1997 Graduate Admissions and Aid Committee Policy Committee Hiring Committee Moody Lectures Series Committee (chair) Morton Dauwen Zabel Committee (poetry readings) Co-convener, “Race and the Reproduction of Racial Ideologies” workshop Co-convener, American Culture workshop Instructor, Mellon program for public high school teachers Advisor, Women’s Guide to the U. of C. Board member, Community Service Center Co-founder, Committee on Racial Justice Member, Committee on Critical Practice Galler Prize Committee for Distinguished dissertations Selection Committee, Mellon Minority Scholars Smith College 1997-1999 Director. Poetry Center at Smith College Founding Collective, “Meridians: race, feminism, transnationalism” Yale University 2000 to date Board, African-American Cultural Center, 2003 to date Graduate Admissions Committee, African-American Studies, 2002-2003 Readings Committee, English Department, 2001 to date Minority Graduate Affairs Advisory Committee, 2002 to date Prize Committee, African-American Cultural Center, 2002-2003 June Jordan Lecture Co-Organizer, African-American Studies, 2002-2003 Langston Hughes and His World Centennial Conference, Literary Director, 2002
OTHER	Judge, Bollingen Prize for Poetry, Yale University Libraries, 2005 2006 Phi Beta Kappa Poet, Harvard University 2005 Phi Beta Kappa Poet, Yale University Guest Poet, Pablo Neruda Centennial Celebration, Santiago, Chile, sponsored by Fundacion Neruda and Universidad Diego Portales, January 2004 Neruda and Universidad Diego Portales, January 2004 Guest Writer, Calabash Literary Festival, Treasure Beach, Jamaica, May 2003 Judge, James Laughlin Award, Academy of American Poets, 2003-2006 Judge, O.B. Hardison Award, Folger Shakespeare Library, 2002-2004 Collaboration on Hillhouse High School Public Art Project with Sheila DeBretteville, 2002-3 New Haven Arts Awards Selection Committee, 2002 Poetry Director, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven, CT 2002, 2003 Poetry Judge, National Book Award, 2002 Co-founder, Cave Canem Legacy Conversation Series, 2002 to date Interdisciplinary Panel Juror, Pew Charitable Trusts Arts Grants, May 2002 Visiting writer abroad, Berlin and Hamburg, Germany; Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Salvador, Brazil. Sponsored by Goethe-Institut and Callaloo magazine, 1995 Dramaturg, “Twilight” by Anna Deavere Smith, Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, Spring 1993 Guest Editor, 1994 Missouri Arts Council Biennial Poetry Panelist, National Endowment for the Arts, 1993 Consultant, Poetry Center of Chicago, 1993-’94 Further information available on request

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