American Sublime: Poems

In her fourth remarkable collection, Elizabeth Alexander voices the outcries, dreams, and histories of an African American tradition that goes back to the slave rebellion on the Amistad and to the artists' canvases of nineteenth-century America. In persona poems, historical narratives, jazz riffs, sonnets, elegies, and a sequence of ars poetica, American Sublime is Alexander's most vivid and varied collection and affirms her place as one of America's most lively and gifted writers.

"Barbecues, midwives, 'Soyinka and Senghor,' 'Etheridge Knight, from prison,' grandparents, students, 'not Congo but Zaire,' mom, 'aggressive magic,' jail, 'my book,' 'children, fathers, brothers' — in this kaleidoscopic fourth collection, Alexander traces shifting global histories, family alliances, ways of working and being trapped, and means of escape in four broad parts. The first, 'American Blue,' takes in the U.S.'s post- '60s history alongside Alexander's child-, student- and adult-hood (with stops at Ellington/Strayhorn's '40s, Monk's '50s and a dream of Krishna along the way). A selection from a larger series titled 'Ars Poetica' covers the ways poetry confronts history: ' 'Poetry,' I shouted, 'Poetry,'/ I screamed, 'Poetry,/ changes none of that/ by what it says/ or how it says, none./ But a poem is a living thing/ ... and as life/ it is all that can stand/ up to violence.' ' 'Amistad,' the third section, channels the black Atlantic convincingly, while the last section, 'American Sublime,' consists of just two short lyrics; the latter ends 'light that carries/ possibility, illuminates,// but can promise nothing but itself.' This collection makes similarly restrained promises and delivers lucidly." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Alexander has a musical voice that shifts from jazz-quick to bluesy to soulful lamentation....[T]he collection as a whole is a powerful contribution to American poetry." Booklist

"Alexander is an unusual thing, a sensualist of history, a romanticist of race. She weaves biography, history, experience, pop culture and dream. Her poems make the public and private dance together." Chicago Tribune

Elizabeth Alexander is the author of three other poetry collections, most recently Antebellum Dream Book, as well as a collection of essays, The Black Interior.