OF ALL THE WRITING GENRES, poetry can feel the most mysterious. It is dense, concise, heartfelt, a wave of words and feeling crashing over the writer and then the reader. Poetry arrives quickly, intensely and, like a comet that has just breached the earth’s atmosphere, needs to cool before taking shape.
Another one of life’s mysteries swept up Elizabeth Alexander, the poet and Yale University professor, moving her, for the first time, to blend poetry and memoir – a monumental task given the differences in genre. But Alexander says when it comes to genre, she doesn’t follow the rules.
In 2012, Alexander’s husband of 15 years had a massive coronary and died almost instantly. She did not stop writ- ing. Instead, she began a book, grieving and writing at the…
