“And I honestly believe that--certainly learning, but also the arts, and in the case of today's topic, the word, are the best way, the most efficient and powerful way for people to see each other, and for people to understand that we all live different lives, and that, as a species, honestly, we don't survive if we don't figure out how to hear, respect, and see each other. And I think that literature has superpowers to do that.” LiteratureLanguageUnderstandingEducationLearningBooksEmpathyRespectWordsArts Author:Elizabeth Alexander
“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 corner, overhear 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?” LoveInspirationalPoetryHumanSocial Media Book:American Sublime: Poems Source: American Sublime: Poems
“In the absence of organized religion, faith abounds, in the form of song and art and food and strong arms.” ArtReligionFaithSongFood Book:The Light of the World Source: The Light of the World
“What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance. In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.” InspirationalPoetryObamaInauguration Author:Elizabeth Alexander
“It’s a fact: black people in this country die more easily, at all ages, across genders. Look at how young black men die, and how middle-aged black men drop dead, and how black women are ravaged by HIV/AIDS. The numbers graft to poverty but they also graph to stresses known and invisible. How did we come here, after all? Not with upturned chins and bright eyes but rather in chains, across a chasm. But what did we do? We built a nation, and we built its art.” DeathRaceAfrican AmericanBlackness Book:The Light of the World Source: The Light of the World
“Henry Ford believed the soul of a person is located in their last breath and so captured the last breath of his best friend Thomas Edison in a test tube and kept it evermore. It is on display at the Henry Ford Museum outside Detroit, like Galileo’s finger in the church of Santa Croce, but Edison’s last breath is an invisible relic.” SoulBreathRelicsThomas EdisonHenry FordThe Henry FordHenry Ford Museum Book:The Light of the World Source: The Light of the World