New York, N.Y. (May 31, 2016) -- Elizabeth Alexander, an acclaimed poet, author and professor, has been elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board, Columbia University announced today.
At the Ford Foundation, where she began work last year as the Director of Creativity and Free Expression, Alexander shapes and directs grant-making in arts, media and culture. She guides efforts to examine how cultural narratives affect and shape social movements and how media and the arts, including film and visual storytelling, can contribute to a fairer and more just society.
Elizabeth Alexander
Alexander has written six books of poetry, including American Sublime, a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, two collections of essays and a critically acclaimed memoir, The Light of the World, a 2016 Pulitzer finalist. Her writing explores such subjects as race, gender, politics, art and history. Among her acclaimed essays, “‘Can You Be BLACK and Look at This?’: Reading the Rodney King Video(s)” and “Meditations on ‘Mecca’: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Responsibilities of the Black Poet” have enlivened debate on the role of art and social justice and addressed issues of race, representation, violence and the vulnerable black body. In 2009, she wrote and delivered her poem “Praise Song for the Day” for President Barack Obama’s first inauguration.
Alexander has taught with distinction at the University of Chicago, where she won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching; New York University, in the graduate creative writing program; and Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet in Residence and director of the Poetry Center. She was on the faculty of Yale University for 15 years and served as chair of Yale’s African American Studies Department. She was recently named the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University.
Alexander has received many awards, fellowships and honorary degrees, among them grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She received the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry and is the inaugural recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Alexander earned a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree from Boston University, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.
The Pulitzer Prize Board elected Alexander to a three-year term. The 19-member board chooses the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism, books, drama and music each April. Board members serve a maximum of nine years.
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