Elizabeth Alexander will read the inaugural poem at the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama in January 2009. It is the first time that “poetry’s old-fashioned praise", as Robert Frost called it, will be featured at the ceremony since Bill Clinton's second swearing in back in 1997.

Born in 1962, Elizabeth Alexander will be only the fourth poet to read at a swearing in after Robert Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy’s in 1961; Maya Angelou, who read at Clinton’s in 1993; and Miller Williams, who read in 1997.

Elizabeth Alexander has published four books of poems in the US, and AMERICAN BLUE: SELECTED POEMS (2006) with Bloodaxe Books in the UK.

In this film she reads two poems in the Jerwood Centre at Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's home in Cumbria: 'Ars Poetica #92: Marcus Garvey on Elocution' and 'Ars Poetica #100: I Believe' from AMERICAN BLUE (Bloodaxe Books, 2006). American readers will find the two poems she reads on this film in her collection AMERICAN SUBLIME (Graywolf Press, 2005).

Made during a visit to Britain in 2006, this film is from the DVD-book IN PERSON: 30 POETS, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce, edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008).