The Light of the World

0:00Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. Botox on a botulinum toxin A prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average 8 to 9 headache days a month versus 6 to 7 for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition.

0:30Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

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2:10Don't hold anything too tightly. Just wish for it, want it, let it come from the intention of real truth for you and then let it go. For me, our soul is like, it's unbound. It's limitless, but we will use words to limit ourselves. When people stop believing that somebody's got your back or Superman's coming, we turn to ourselves and that's where you become empowered. Courageous participation attracts positive things. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow and this is the Goop podcast, where we bring together visionaries, scientists, healers, artists, and seekers. I'm so grateful that I get to interview these extraordinary thought leaders and share their wisdom with you.

2:58And I love listening to the conversations that are led by my co-host and dear friend, Cleo Wade. Cleo is a beautiful poet and author. I deeply admire her and the way she keeps her heart open to the world. Together, we believe that engaging in open-minded, honest, and sometimes difficult conversations has the power to change our lives. All right, over to Cleo. My guest today is Elizabeth Alexander. Elizabeth is a decorated poet, memoirist, and the president of the Mellon Foundation, which is the largest arts and cultural funder in America. She is the author of several books, including one of my personal favorites, the light of the world, and the Trayvon generation.

3:46You may also remember her from President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration, where she read her poem, Praise Song for the Day. I was thrilled to sit down with Elizabeth for so many reasons, but particularly because April is National Poetry Month. I'm fascinated by how writing has the power to move things out of our body and put them in front of us on the page. We discussed poetry as a mental health tool, and we also talked about keeping alive the work of the people who came before us. We talked about how creativity can be in service of our communities, the difference between evolution and revolution, and her vision for the future of the Mellon Foundation under her leadership.

4:32At the end, Elizabeth reads us a poem that I think is a beautiful reminder of how connection can lead us towards collective healing. Okay, let's get to my chat with Elizabeth Alexander.

4:49I was listening to The Light of the World for the first time because I read it when it first came out, but I always say that like, that book is the book you buy but never get to keep because you just give it away constantly. I mean, there's not a person who doesn't come into your house or your world who doesn't need that book. So I never get to have it. It's amazing to me all these years later, it is literally not a week goes by that I don't hear about somebody who the book has been for. The richness of that, it just makes it worth everything. I think that when someone who you love passes and, and, and you're in, you're with a friend and in community with somebody who's grieving, there's no right thing to say.

5:35And there's no right thing to do because it's all wrong because it's, it's, it's the thing that doesn't feel right ever. And the only offering there, there is our books, you know, and I think on, of, of someone saying in this life, I've lived this too, or through this. And I think it gives people so much hope to hear or read someone going through it. Also, I feel like Maya Angelou said it really well when she talked about becoming pregnant with her son. And she said, having my son gave me the courage to invent my life. And I think you have done also such amazing work in legacy of not only your lead husband And also African-American dream work in our country, especially.

6:25And I guess I kind of want to start with, do you feel that you ever had that moment of inventing yourself, of this idea of something happened or I felt something, I met someone And I got to start the journey of becoming who I was in this kind of fiery way. Hmm. I think that with one of my close friends who shares my love of theater and song, when we're being funny with each other and when something big has happened, I'll text him and say, hear me singing Jennifer Holiday, I am changing in Dreamgirls. When, you know, when something, something it just, when you can feel that you are shifting, when you can see the light of a new idea or a new purpose, and you know that you have to attend to that and stay focused with that and not be afraid of it and feed it and let it happen.

7:28I like to think that that happens not every day, maybe not every year, but every couple of years, you know, kind of just recalibrating our mission or how we want to learn and grow. Certainly, though, quite explicitly, when Fikre, my late husband, passed, it was such a stark moment. And on the one hand, I knew that there was only one thing to do, which was raise our children. And that was the raison d 'etre for every day. That was the absolutely the thing I had to do, the thing that nobody else could do, and the thing that kept me moving in purpose. but also I think because he passed very unexpectedly a few days after we had beautifully celebrated his 50th birthday and I was about to turn 50.

8:29And so it was one of those moments where, you know, quite clearly nothing is promised to us. Life is short. How do you show your children resilience and courage and vulnerability at the same time. And so I decided pretty quickly that I was going to move us from New Haven to New York City, which was a literal decision that I wanted the children to be in a larger place, a more diverse place, a place where they weren't in the fishbowl of being the kids whose dad died, where we had other ties. We had many deep, deep, deep ties in New Haven, but a wider field of ties even in New York. I wanted them to become city kids.

9:15We had always wanted them to become city kids. So there was the practicality of that decision. But then as it happened, I didn't know that that was opening up a chapter in my life where I would completely change careers, where I would go into workspace that I literally never would have dreamed or imagined. And that I would be saying yes to so many things that were not part of the plan. Although I must say, I've never been someone who made one plan. I just stayed working hard and tried to stay open. The structure of the light of our world reminds me so much of the structure of Generations by Lysel Clifton, because I think it kind of gets you on a roll back into a ritual that is so beautiful for us.

10:04And in your book, I think when people are going through a really hard time, the way that your book is written is in a series of these beautiful poetic vignettes that tell the story of your love story and the life. I think there's such a focus on the life, even though obviously what's confident is the passing. But I have this copy of this book, which as you probably know is so hard to find. It's one of my most prized possessions, but in it, there's this inscription from the previous owner of the book, quoting Lucille Clifton in it. And the quote, she says, July, 1986 to Barbara, things don't fall apart.

10:40Things hold lines, connect in thin ways that last and last. And I was so reminded of these words by Lucille Clifton and that inscription because your book really made me think of that and feel that, that the way that things hold and hold. Thank you for bringing Lucille into the conversation. She is, is, present tense, one of my poetry mothers, one of my unexpected added mothers in life. I came to her first through her poems when I was probably 12 or 13. And I think I love what you said about short form because the light of the world certainly is a poet's prose. Each chapter is very, very distilled and follows the poetic logic of language first.

11:35I wasn't trying to tell a story in order. I was trying to let the language take me to the piece that I wanted to share. But I never thought about that book as being influential on the light of the world. But of course, it is. Because believing that a book of prose can be a strand of pearls, right? And I write about Lucille's poem where she talks about the passing of her husband, Fred Clifton, at 46. and about how strange it was to watch his soul leave his body and how you keep those people with you. So she's infused in the book. I learned so much about mothering and being a poet from her. And she talks about also short form and its practicality, right?

12:29That if you got all these things going on, you may not be able to write a lengthy epic. But I think the meditative aspect of her work, her absolute profundity, her pithy analysis, all of the things that she does in tiny spaces are so exemplary. And this is work that I come back to quite regularly. I mean, it's literally a holy book for me. because I will also see different things in the poems from when I was 12, when I was older, when I was older. And tying this to your earlier point about ancestral dream work and about my devotion to African-American culture and the responsibility, I think, of keeping alive the work of our ancestors and the people who made us possible.

13:26And I think what's so fascinating is the mission and the set of opportunities for an earlier generation is not the same as what we might have opportunity to do, what we might be called to do. But it's all on a continuum. I think it's more complicated than they cleared the path so we can do the thing. No, I think they did the thing. And now what's the thing that we have to do that is going to look a little bit different? Because who would have imagined? I mean, where our culture is right now and all of the challenges to the truth and all of the lies about what America is and how it was made and who made it.

14:11I would have thought 30 years ago when I first started out as a professor in African-American studies that we were moving a little bit more inexorably forward. I do think that we've moved forward in ways that can't be taken back. And this I know from decades as an educator teaching in completely mixed classrooms in various American universities and seeing students who say, why wasn't I taught this? Why wasn't I told this? Why over in the English department are they saying Lucille Clifton's not poetry? Why didn't I read Gwendolyn Brooks? Why didn't I know Robert Hayden's Those Winter Sundays was written by a Black poet?

14:54That changes how I think about it. And the exhilaration from being filled with this genius, all this genius, I see now because I have all these generations of students doing wonderful things that are mostly not poetry or culture. You know, they're doing all sorts of other things in the world, but they have carried our culture with them wherever they go. So this is how I know that we're not even yet able to measure where the opening of Black studies has taken us, even as we're in these crazy times. chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month each lasting four hours or more can make me feel like a spectator in my own life botox on a botulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine it's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month it's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment prescription botox is injected by your doctor effects of botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing speaking breathing eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition.

16:07Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

16:37We often hear the famous Nina Simone words that it's an artist's duty to reflect the times. And when I'm talking about that with my girlfriends, we often add in themselves, to reflect the times in themselves because in the vein of kind of, you know, Whitman's eye contained multitudes, history contains multitudes. And so when the artists are reflecting themselves within the times in very intimate, intimate, intimate ways. We have the anthems of what's going on by Marvin Gaye and beautiful song in that way. And then we have these kind of the smaller interior moments that I find so often in your poetry and in your mission as an educator, and now with the Mellon Foundation, it's almost like you have that Tony Morrison spirit of preserving, preserving, preserving, gathering, gathering, gathering, all while being this amazing artist and creator.

17:40And how do you kind of move between both sides of your brain in that way? And what is that kind of like for you? I loved your latest book, The Trayvon Generation, based on the essay. That was so beautiful. And there's always artists that are kind of dripping off the pages. Because I mean, there are so many artists that I was introduced to because they were the covers of some of your poetry books. You just kind of living in it and then finding this is where this energy belongs and this is where this energy belongs. And how do you carve out the time for your own creative self, your own, you know, the work you do that reflects the times, the work you do that reflects the self.

18:20You know, you mentioned Toni Morrison, who has always been, I mean, you know, she's otherworldly in her artistic creation. So to say, you know, she's a writer who's influenced me is like saying the sky is the sky. I don't even know what to say about that. I use the alphabet when I, when I write. That's right. But I think, you know, in early days, I really knew about her. I remember reading this in interviews where she would talk about rising before dawn and meeting the light, that she would make her coffee and write into the light. And I always thought that that was an amazing practice and metaphor, but that she was doing that.

19:01Why? Because at six o 'clock, the two sons she was single mothering would get up and needed care. And then she'd have to get them off to school. And then she'd have to get on the train to the city, to the day job as an editor. And by the way, in that day job as an editor, I mean, she is the most influential editor of Black writing in history. Lucille's Generations, Angela Davis's autobiography, Muhammad Ali's autobiography, Gail Jones, Leon Forrest. It goes on and on and on. Oh, my goodness. You know, and all, I mean, every book she made had, as an editor, had the Black Book, a book that I've taught with forever and ever and ever.

19:46There it is. So I think that what is in that is a practicality. She was a working mother. And, you know, those first novels were not going to support those kids. The first three novels before, you know, things got much larger with Beloved. I think also, I mean, I make just a funny little joke with myself. I'm like, well, I'm a Gemini, which is to say that I like more than one thing going on at the same time, but I'm practical too. So I knew that to be a poet, there had to be another gig, another structure. And what I always loved about teaching was I could take these precious things and talk about them with other people who, if they didn't start out caring about them, would come to care about them.

20:32And that actually the university made a place for a writer. And what I've always tried to do in any kind of administrative capacity in university life is make space for artists, find resources, bring people in, send folks out, understand that the boundary between the university and the rest of the world did not have to be so set. And that in a well-resourced university, bringing culture in was part of what would make them alive spaces. And I think that that just moves forward to my work in philanthropy, helping resource the folks who are doing incredible and visionary work. And that it's important to have the value of distributing excess wealth to visionaries.

21:22So I think that also I have learned that there are chapters in life so that we can't, and I think women especially can make ourselves a little crazy thinking that we're supposed to be doing everything on all cylinders at all times, every single moment of our lives. You know, when my first son was born, a child who will turn 25. But I remember thinking, okay, you know, time to be a mom and not a writer. Because I can't be those two things at the same time. And then when I would nurse him late at night in those magical deep hours, language was very free and wild and strange and beautiful in my head.

22:12And of the, you know, million gifts our children give us, I say that that child gave me the reminder that I was always a poet, even if I didn't write it down, that I was, that I was always, always a poet. And then, you know, my kids are back to back. So it's like a little startling. I believe in staying in mode, But, you know, as you know, it means that there's a lot going on. And that was when a very wise older woman faculty member said to me, you have time. Just give it time. You don't have to do it all at once. And that was just really powerful. I mean, I never had been one who thought, you know, oh, I must write, you know, one book this year or one chapter this month.

22:59I don't quite work that way. As I said, I just kind of stay working. but to realize there are seasons. And for me now, this season in philanthropy to do it well, to do it powerfully, to do it strategically, to do it effectively, to build and inspire a team who can carry the workout. I have needed to bring my creativity to that. I'm not trying to do it just to do it. I'm trying to do it in a really transformational way to the greatest extent that I can. So that means that there aren't poems right now. And that's okay. I mean, that is just so okay. I learned to say more about what it meant to be a poet, even if I wasn't writing it down, to be encountering the world with poets' eyes, to be living deeply in language and its possibilities and its suggestions and its power.

24:04And once again, I mean, I just have always thought, and this is the part of me that is a race woman too, per my parents, per my family. I think that it's not about just me having the time and space to write poems and books. That's just a blip. it's about a culture where people are valued who do that work. And if I have the ability to be helpful to someone doing the hard work of visioning, I better figure out how to do it to the greatest possible extent. I feel that you were raised in a household where service was was so at this kind of center of finding purpose, because I think most people are looking for purpose.

24:54That's something people ask me out all the time. How do I find my purpose? How do I find my purpose? And I often say, think less about finding a purpose and more about what you do that you can bring purpose to. And I think that if you're bringing purpose to enough things, It kind of guides you into something that is very rooted in service. And then you kind of feel that feeling of a million tiny things becoming one big thing. And do you feel that your upbringing and that kind of centering of service made you kind of the woman you are in a way? I feel that you're always working towards service regardless of the medium.

25:38Because I feel that the poetry you write is of deep service to us. And then there's these kind of creating the justice fund is of extreme service to us. And do you think that that has a lot to do with your upbringing? Well, yeah. I mean, I think that just trying to be as generous as possible. And if you think about it at the simplest level, if you have a sandwich and you sit there all by yourself and eat your sandwich, it may be absolutely delicious and you may be full. but if you give half your sandwich to someone else and enjoy that food together, you know, I mean, it's sort of a principle that there is something humanly multiplicative about being generous.

26:23And I was also certainly taught as a very little child that hoarding was bad. Not sharing is bad that you, you have to share. You really, really, really, really have to share. And I think that further in teaching, as we talked about earlier, you just see how it can be very lonely to be just in the world of making things by yourself. And suddenly you belong to more. I think that also my parents taught me very explicitly, just because you're in the room, just because you're in the fancy school, just because you're in whatever place, the privilege of your learning, the privilege of your education, it's not because you're more special than other people.

27:15It's just because you have that privilege. So what are you going to do with it? How are you going to share it? How are you going to bring other people with you? I mean, that was a very, very explicit value when I was growing up. And as Black people, you never want to be the only person. The idea is not to be the only one. The idea is to have as many people as possible in the room and to nurture possibility and to say, okay, here, this is what's happening over here. And that it really is not okay to have a kind of sense of exceptionalism. Yeah. I think that knowledge and critical thinking, it is inert if you don't share it.

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28:42Join the 1.6 million companies that sponsor their jobs with Indeed. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results now with Indeed-sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash listen. Just go to Indeed.com slash listen right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash listen. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. You talked in the Trayvon Generation about evolution versus revolution.

29:22Could you share a little bit of your ideas? Yeah, you know, I kind of came to clarity about that idea recently because when I now almost five years ago came to the Mellon Foundation, I think that probably my colleagues would say that evolution is the word I use the most. talking about evolving a legacy institution where the work that we fund is in arts, culture, humanities, libraries, archives. That's always for 50 some years been what the Mellon Foundation funds. But to come in and say, now we are a social justice foundation. And so that means that we're thinking about what stories haven't been told, what organizations and people and cultures are under-resourced and what happens when we bring some equity to that.

30:10It was in some ways revolutionary to name that dramatically in the beginning and say like, okay, this is what we're doing. And even in the process of being interviewed for the job, I was very clear that to the board, if this is not what you want, that is fine. But then I'm not your woman because that's what we're and do from day one. That's going to necessitate not just coming in with big ideas, but building and transformation and evolution. So, you know, the evolution is how the work plays out of the structure of the staff, of who our grantees are and how we work with them. And as you make one change, then you realize, ah, there's 10 other changes we need to make in order to let this happen.