Will Inaugural Poet Elizabeth Alexander Deliver the Goods?

Imagine what the fourth ever inaugural poet must be feeling right now. Here's what she hopes to accomplish:

Cleveland Post: "I think what I hope to symbolize and demonstrate is the important role that arts and literature can play in this moment when the country is thinking so keenly about moving forward and coming together," Alexander said.

Alexander acknowledged the challenge before her. She said she does not start with a message in mind, likening the process to a radio antenna in which she listens for the right language.

"You're always trying to catch a rhythm," she said. "It's something I will be chipping away at every day."

Maya Angelou scored but other inaugural poets didn't, according to Poet David Yezzi, who wrote a story about the challenge in today's WSJ:

Inaugural poets to date have not had the most sterling track record on the big declaiming day. Ms. Alexander is the fourth poet to fill the role, the first being Robert Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. (It is interesting to imagine what Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln inaugural poems might have been like; surely Teddy Roosevelt would have written his own, in a Kipling spirit.)

Yezzi says her poem has to have broad appeal: 

WSJ: Poems create this condition with the stories they tell, but more importantly in the way they tell them. Great poems find an expression for experiences and emotions that we would not have words for otherwise. In so doing, they give us those emotions and the experiences fully for the first time. The stumbling block for most political poetry is narrowness. As soon as poetry espouses an interest group, it ceases to speak to the widest audience and fails in its bid for universality.

In the end, the greatness of Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem will depend on how many Americans find it both affecting and true. For her participation to be something more than ceremonial, she will have to speak not only for Mr. Obama and his supporters but also for the more than 50 million voters who pulled another lever or punched a different chad. If successful, she will have added to the language, claiming for it a new richness -- always a welcome thing. If not we will have only more politics as usual.

If her poem soars, her books will probably sell like hotcakes.
You can get them now-- at a discount. One of her publishers, the University of Michigan Press, is offering inauguration discounts on select books and has dedicated a site to Alexander and her work.

Alexander, born in Harlem in 1962, comes from a political family. She is good friends with Obama and her brother is on Obama's transition team:

WSJ: Ms. Alexander comes from a political and academic family and is a champion of politically engaged poetry. Her father, Clifford L. Alexander Jr., advised Lyndon B. Johnson on civil rights and later served as secretary of the Army under Jimmy Carter. Her younger brother, Mark, a law professor at Seton Hall, recently transitioned from Mr. Obama's campaign staff to his transition team.

More on Alexander from the official inaugural planning site.

Here she is:

New interview with Alexander (added 1-13)