This Sunday night’s poet is Elizabeth Alexander. Her Antebellum Dream Book, like several of her other books, is practically a tour of American Black history, and contains a wonderful poem about one of my fellow Kentuckians, “Narrative: Ali.” It’s too long to include here, and I don’t want to excerpt it, so instead here’s “Elegy,” another poem about an American original:
#Elizabeth Alexander
By Elizabeth Alexander
via the Poetry Foundation
My mother loves butter more than I do,
more than anyone. She pulls chunks off
the stick and eats it plain, explaining
cream spun around into butter! Growing up
we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon
and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,
butter melting in small pools in the hearts
of Yorkshire puddings, butter better
than gravy staining white rice yellow,
butter glazing corn in slipping squares,
butter the lava in white volcanoes
of hominy grits, butter softening
in a white bowl to be creamed with white
sugar, butter disappearing into
whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,
butter melted and curdy to pour
over pancakes, butter licked off the plate
with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture
the good old days I am grinning greasy
with my brother, having watched the tiger
chase his tail and turn to butter. We are
Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite
historical revision, despite
our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside
out, one hundred megawatts of butter.
A Note from the Editor
On this day in 1923, Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty pronounced it legal for women to wear trousers anywhere.
Source: Body of Life ( Tia Chucha, 1996 )
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