Poetry in Motion, Day 1 (Elizabeth Alexander)

For National Poetry Month, I am unoffically partnering with the Poetry Society of America in showing off my collection of Poetry in Motion posters. I don't know if I have 30 to get me through the month, but there's one on my wall at home, eight on my wall at work, and perhaps, perhaps, 21 unframed under the bed. Perhaps more.

So we'll start with the first, actually technically belonging to Melanie, it is an excerpt from Elizabeth Alexander's "My Grandmother's New York Apartment." It's a little sun-faded, but it is inscribed to Melanie by the poet. Click photo to enlarge and read, or read below.

from My Grandmother's New York Apartment

Everything pulled out or folded away:
sofa into a bed, tray tables that dis-
appear behind a door, everything
transmutable, alchemy in small
spaces, even my grandmother tiny
and changeable: a housecoat and rollers
which vanish and become an Irish
tweed suit, a tilted chapeau, a Hello
in the elevator just like, as she
would say, the Queen of Denmark.

Ms. Alexander signed this for Melanie several years ago at a poetry reading celebrating the Poetry in Motion series, at the Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn.