Poems

Find and share the perfect poems.

Toomer

Elizabeth Alexander

1962 –

(Jean Toomer)

I did not wish to “rise above”

or “move beyond” my race. I wished

to contemplate who I was beyond

my body, this container of flesh.

I made up a language in which to exist.

I wondered what God breathed into me.

I wondered who I was beyond

this complicated, milk-skinned, genital-ed body.

I exercised it, watched it change and grow.

I spun like a dervish to see what would happen. Oh,

to be a Negro is—is?—

to be a Negro, is. To be.

Elizabeth Alexander was born in 1962 in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Washington, D.C. She currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

About Elizabeth Alexander

Occasion

Black History Month

Themes

Ancestry

Sign up for Poem-a-Day

More by this poet

Blues

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I 
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato, foods that
slothful people eat, that turn
yellow and opaque beneath the skin.
Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown, the one
with the lace trim listing because
I have not mended it. Many days
I do not exercise, only
consider it, then rub my curdy
belly and lie down. Even
my poems are lazy.

Elizabeth Alexander

1996

Ars Poetica #1,002: Rally

I dreamed a pronouncement
about poetry and peace.

“People are violent,”
I said through the megaphone

on the quintessentially
frigid Saturday

to the rabble stretching
all the way up First.

“People do violence
unto each other

and unto the earth
and unto its creatures.

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

made by living creatures
(live voice in a small box)

Elizabeth Alexander

2018

Rally

(Miami, October 2008)

The awesome weight of the world had not yet descended
upon his athlete’s shoulders. I saw someone light but not feathered

job up to the rickety stage like a jock off the court
played my game did my best

and the silent crowd listened and dreamed.
The children sat high on their parents’ shoulders.

Then the crowd made noise that gathered and grew
until it was loud and was loud as the sea.

Elizabeth Alexander

2018

Poems

Page submenu block

Toomer

More by this poet

Blues

Ars Poetica #1,002: Rally

Rally

Newsletter Sign Up