Elizabeth Alexander Named Inaugural Poet for Obama's Swearing-in Ceremony

Posted on December 17, 2008

Elizabeth Alexander has been selected to read a poem at Barack Obama's inaugural swearing-in ceremony on January 20th. She is a prize-winning poet at Yale University. Her website can be found here.

Alexander tells the Washington Post, "I am obviously profoundly honored and thrilled. Not only to have a chance to have some small part of this extraordinary moment in American history. . . . This incoming president of ours has shown in every act that words matter, that words carry meaning, that words carry power, that words are the medium with which we communicate across difference and that words have tremendous possibilities, and those possibilities are not empty."

Alexander will be only the fourth poet to read at an inaugural swearing-in ceremony. Here's the other three:

• Robert Frost read at John F. Kennedy's in 1961
• Maya Angelou read at Bill Clinton's in 1993
• Miller Williams, read at Clinton's second inauguration in 1997