In these prosaic times, Barack Obama seems to have decided to add a bit of flight of fancy. “This is only the fourth time in our history that a President has featured a poet at his inaugural. I hope that this portends well for the future of the arts in our everyday and civic life,” says Elizabeth Alexander, the Yale professor who has ben invited to deliver her poem after president-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural address on January 20.
Elizabeth, who was born in 1962 in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Washington, D.C., writes in her website: “I understand that as a country we stand poised to make tremendous choices about our collective future. Poetry is not meant to cheer; rather, poetry challenges, and moves us towards transformation. Language distilled and artfully arranged shifts our experience of the words – and the worldviews – we live in.”
The Guardian wrote: “Obama had been spotted carrying what appeared to be a book of the Nobel laureate Derek Walcott’s poetry last month, but it is Alexander, a professor of African American studies at Yale University, who will compose a poem to be read at his swearing in as president. She will perform alongside Aretha Franklin, Itzak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma. The participants were chosen based on requests from Obama and from vice-president-elect Joe Biden.
“Alexander, who has published four collections of poems, most recently the 2005 Pulitzer prize finalist American Sublime, will be only the fourth poet to have read at a presidential inauguration. A tradition eschewed by current incumbent George W Bush, Bill Clinton invited poets to both of his inaugurations, with Miller Williams reading in 1997, and Maya Angelou in 1993. The only other poet to have read at an inauguration was Robert Frost, who recited The Gift Outright for John F Kennedy in 1961.
“American Sublime includes the poem Ars Poetica #100: I Believe, in which she writes that:
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.