News at Eleven: At other times her [Elizabeth Alexander's] voice

is calm and plain-spoken, as in this snippet from the poem "Smile":

When I see a black man smiling
like that, nodding and smiling
with both hands visible, mouthing
"Yes, Officer," across the street,
I think of my father, who taught us
the words "cooperate," "officer,"
to memorize badge numbers,
who has seen black men shot at
from behind in the warm months north.

Ms. Alexander, who was born in Harlem and raised in Washington, has been on fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard.

from The New York Times: The Intersection of Poetry and Politics

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