Elizabeth Alexander (poet) Quotes

8 Sourced Quotes

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.

Elizabeth Alexander
Giving birth is like jazz, something from silence, then all of it.

Elizabeth Alexander
What a strange thing is "race," and family, stranger still.

Elizabeth Alexander
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.

Elizabeth Alexander
Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Elizabeth Alexander
Since my own genitals are public
I have made other parts private.

Elizabeth Alexander
Life is only momentarily fearless; life is only for a moment full of cures; the body, as always, tells the round, bald truth when my stomach grips to say, no cure in sight.

Elizabeth Alexander
I am called "Venus Hottentot."
I left Capetown with a promise
of revenue: half the profits
and my passage home: A boon!
Master's brother proposed the trip;
the magistrate granted me leave
I would return to my family
a duchess, with watered-silk
dresses and money to grow food.

Elizabeth Alexander