Praise Song for the Day was commissioned for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. These inspiring words by award-winning poet Elizabeth Alexander celebrate all that has made America what it is today and challenge us—as individuals, as communities, as a nation—to continue working toward the dream of a better world for all. 
Together with spectacular illustrations by Caldecott Award–winning illustrator David Diaz, Praise Song for the Day reminds us that we are an ever-evolving nation fueled by hope, freedom, perseverance, and love.

Praise Song for the Day

Children's Books

Alexander, Elizabeth

Literature & Fiction

Katherine Tegen Books

PUMPKIN PIE IS FINE, you see, but a jack-o’-lantern is what I’ll be! Little Pumpkin is singing his favorite song when a squirrel tells him that he’ll never be picked for Halloween because he’s still green. Little Pumpkin is heartbroken—until something extraordinary happens that will warm your heart and light up your Halloween! Young readers will love pressing the button to see what lights up on each spread of this interactive hardcover book.

Little Pumpkin's Big Surprise!

Holidays & Celebrations

Golden Books

Hippity-Hop! Hippity-Hop! Grasshopper hops off on an adventure that lands him in lots of peculiar places—the soup, which is too hot; the fridge, which is too cold; the sea, which is too salty; and into the mouth of the big hungry frog, which is . . . well, you’ll have to read more to find out! How far will poor Grasshopper have to hop before he finds the right place to be? This funny and fun-filled story is brought to life with easy-to-move tabs that allow children to help the grasshopper find his favorite spot.

The Grasshopper Hopped!

Animals

Power and Possibility: Essays, Reviews, and Interviews (Poets On Poetry)

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation. Elizabeth Alexander is considered one of the country's most gifted contemporary poets, and the publication of her essays in The Black Interior in 2004 established her as an astute critic and cultural commentator as well. Arnold Rampersad has called Alexander "one of the brightest stars in our literary sky . . . a superb, invaluable commentator on the American scene." In this new collection of her essays, reviews, and interviews, Alexander again focuses on African American artistic production, particularly poetry, and the cultural contexts in which it is created and experienced. The book's first section, "Black Arts 101," takes up the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sterling Brown, Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Rita Dove (among others); artist Romare Bearden; dancer Bill T. Jones; and dramatist August Wilson. A second section, "Black Feminist Thinking," provides engaging meditations ranging from "My Grandmother's Hair" and "A Very Short History of Black Women and Food" to essays on the legacies of Toni Cade, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan. The collection's final section, "Talking," includes interviews, a commencement address---"Black Graduation"---and the essay "Africa and the World." Elizabeth Alexander received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She has published four books of poems: The Venus Hottentot (1990); Body of Life (1996); Antebellum Dream Book (2001); and, most recently, American Sublime (2005), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her play, Diva Studies, was produced at the Yale School of Drama. She is presently Professor of American and African American Studies at Yale University.

History & Criticism

University of Michigan Press

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.
Elizabeth Alexander is considered one of the country's most gifted contemporary poets, and the publication of her essays in The Black Interior in 2004 established her as an astute critic and cultural commentator as well. Arnold Rampersad has called Alexander "one of the brightest stars in our literary sky . . . a superb, invaluable commentator on the American scene." In this new collection of her essays, reviews, and interviews, Alexander again focuses on African American artistic production, particularly poetry, and the cultural contexts in which it is created and experienced. 
The book's first section, "Black Arts 101," takes up the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sterling Brown, Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Rita Dove (among others); artist Romare Bearden; dancer Bill T. Jones; and dramatist August Wilson. A second section, "Black Feminist Thinking," provides engaging meditations ranging from "My Grandmother's Hair" and "A Very Short History of Black Women and Food" to essays on the legacies of Toni Cade, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan. The collection's final section, "Talking," includes interviews, a commencement address---"Black Graduation"---and the essay "Africa and the World."
Elizabeth Alexander received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She has published four books of poems: The Venus Hottentot (1990); Body of Life (1996); Antebellum Dream Book (2001); and, most recently, American Sublime (2005), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her play, Diva Studies, was produced at the Yale School of Drama. She is presently Professor of American and African American Studies at Yale University.

The Venus Hottentot is the first collection of poems, including eight previously unpublished, by this poet. Elizabeth Alexander's poems are at once private and collective - addressing issues that are public concerns, but driven by private voices.

The Venus Hottentot (Callaloo Poetry Series, Number 9)

University of Virginia Press

A century of Harlem, through the eyes and lenses of some of the most important artists and photographers of the twentieth century. The vibrant and bustling neighborhood occupying the upper reaches of Manhattan has been at the crossroads of the artistic, literary, and political currents of the African-American community since the early days of the twentieth century. Home to writers and revolutionaries, artists and agitators, Harlem has been both subject and inspiration for countless photographers. This sweeping photographic survey includes nearly two hundred images that tell the story of Harlem - its distinctive landscape and extraordinary inhabitants - throughout the twentieth century. Featured artists include: Gordon Parks, James VanDerZee, Eve Arnold, Alice Attie, Cornell Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, Dawoud Bey, Chester Higgins, Jr., Helen Levitt, Aaron Siskind, Bruce Davidson, Roy DeCarava, Leonard Freed, Carl Van Vechten, and Weegee. The book features essays by leading scholars of African-American studies and art - including Deborah Willis, Cheryl Finley, Elizabeth Alexander, and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - which are paired with the work of eighty artists and photographers, affording this enclave the richest chronicling in its history.

Harlem: A Century in Images

Arts & Photography

Willis, Deborah

Finley, Cheryl

Photography & Video

Skira/Rizzoli

Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series

In 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just 23 years old, completed a series of 60 small tempera paintings with text captions about the Great Migration, the mass movement of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North that began in 1915–16. Within months of its making, the Migration Series was divided between The Museum of Modern Art (even-numbered panels) and the Phillips Memorial Gallery (odd-numbered panels). The work has since become a landmark in the history of African American art, a monument in the collections of both institutions and a crucial example of the way in which history painting was radically reimagined in the modern era. In 2015 and 2016, the panels will be reunited in exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art (One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Works) and at The Phillips Collection (Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series). This catalogue grounds Lawrence's Migration Series in the cultural and political debates that shaped the young artist's work and highlights its continued resonance for artists and writers today. An essay by Leah Dickerman situates the series within contemporary discussions about black history and an artist's social responsiblities in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Elsa Smithgall traces the acquisition and exhibition history of the Migration Series. Short commentaries on each panel explore Lawrence's career and technique, and the social history of the Migration. The catalogue also debuts ten poems commissioned from acclaimed poets that respond to the Migration Series. Elizabeth Alexander, honored as the poet at President Obama's first inauguration, introduces the section.

KOMUNYAKAA, YUSEF

Young, Kevin

Hayes, Terrance

JONES, PATRICIA

DOVE, RITA

Trethewey, Natasha

Finney, Nikky

Jess, Tyehimba

Roberts, Jodi

Van Clief-Stefanon, Lyrae

Williams, Crystal

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Prison privatization is a rapidly increasing phenomenon in many Western countries as governments seek to manage burgeoning prison populations within the constraints of a neo-liberal political agenda. But how is public well being served when prisons are run for profit? Bringing together a group of the most accomplished writers and activists on human rights and prison priva-tization, Capitalist Punishment: Prison Privatization &amp; Human Rights discusses privatization within its historical and ideological context, and in relation to international standard minimum rules developed by the United Nations in relation to prison management. Capitalist Punishment examines the adverse effects of private prisons on inmates related to physical and sexual abuse, health care, education, training, and rehabilitation, as corporations seek to maximize profits. It describes the impact on prison staff, from whose salaries corporate profits are wrung, of further cost cutting in the design of facilities and allocation of personnel. Special attention is paid to the effect on vulnerable groups such as women, children, and dispro-portionately incarcerated minority and indigenous communities. Even as serious questions emerge in the West as to whether privatized prisons offer a more effective and efficient prison system for either inmates or the public at large, the trend to privatization is spreading. Revealing important links between neo-liberal policies locally and their global effects, Capitalist Punishment offers a disturbing glimpse into the transnational spread of privatized incarceration, as developing nations bound by IMFrestrictions are forced into the hands of transnational corporations to the detriment of local incarceration alternatives.

CAPITALIST PUNISHMENT: Prison Privatization and Human Rights

Parenti, Christian

Friedman, Alex

Campbell, Allison

Hannah-Moffat, Kelly

Clarity Press, Inc.

Poetry. "When Alexander and Stefanon scrutinize the variegated surfaces of Romare Bearden's art, the intensity of their gazes gives way to speech. In the blues of 'Reclining Nude,' Stefanon's speaker discovers 'I could hear / her holding / her breath.' Alexander finds images that transmute into sounds: 'Flowered dresses. / A woman's holler. River or guitar.' In the hands of these poets, ekphrasis is an act of inquiry, a mode of poetic transformation as well as cultural analysis. For both, the lacunae inherent in acts of reading and looking are openings for empathy, uncertainty, discourse"—Barbara Fischer.

Poems in Conversation and a Conversation (Sleepy Hollow Chapbook)

Poetry

Slapering Hol Press

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Books by Alexander, Elizabeth