In The Light of the World, Elizabeth Alexander finds herself at an existential crossroads after the sudden death of her husband, who was just 50. Reflecting with gratitude on the exquisite beauty of her married life that was, grappling with the subsequent void, and feeling a reenergized devotion to her two teenage sons, Alexander channels her poetic sensibilities into a rich, lucid prose that describes a very personal.
In the poem she wrote for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, “Praise Song for the Day,” Elizabeth Alexander asked, “What if the mightiest word is love?” In The Light of the World, her memoir about the sudden death of her husband in 2012, the poet, essayist and playwright renders her own exquisite response. Using her medium of words, she illuminates and lyricizes the life of her mate—the painter and political refugee Ficre Ghebreyesus—and the shattering grief that follows his death at age 50. Her tool is the brush of poetic sensibility, casting her words through the filtering lenses of the African diaspora, the couple’s Eritrean and African-American ancestors, and her own sustaining community. Alexander creates an intimacy that coaxes a transformative empathy from her reader, and she rewards with a profound understanding of love and loss.
- In the poem she wrote for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, “Praise Song for the Day,” Elizabeth Alexander asked, “What if the mightiest word is love?” In The Light of the World, her memoir about the sudden death of her husband in 2012, the poet, essayist and playwright renders her own exquisite response.
- Alexander has written a memoir, The Light of the World, about her husband, her marriage, her grief, and much more. An Eritrean immigrant and artist with whom Alexander (GRS’87) had two sons, Ghebreyesus was a playful, generous soul who created East Africa–infused pastel canvases in his studio and traditional Eritrean food in the New Haven.
Yet, as sudden as Ficre’s death is, Alexander describes her grieving as mercifully graded, an evolution that allows her and their two young sons time to retrieve Ficre’s essence. First, there is the gut-wrenching physicality of the moment of his death, all senses erupting as she sees her lover leave his body behind. In the aftermath, she looks for him in what was once the familiar: Ficre in his garden, among the peonies he planted to bloom on her birthday; Ficre in his studio, where brushes still hold his touch; Ficre in the dishes he created as a popular chef. These comforting remainders—intensely sensual—carry her through that first aching year of widowhood. Finally, she moves her family from suburb to the city, not to flee memory’s hold in the house they all had shared, but to resume the plan the couple once had for their future.
Ficre too will live on because, as promised in Alexander’s poem, “Love beyond marital, filial, national . . . casts a widening pool of light.”
This article was originally published in the May 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook. 1password safe for travel.
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Wow. That was my response by about 30 pages into this book and then all the way through the end. Wow. Leave it to a poet to find a unique way to explore death, grief, and life after losing one that you love.
The Light Of The World By Elizabeth Alexander
In The Light of the World, Alexander deals with the sudden loss of her husband at the age of 50. She loses the man she loves and not only needs to help her two teenage boys through this process, but has to find her own way in the world. The book addresses some of the things all people with grief deal with — going back to work, cleaning out the belongings of the one who died, learning to do things the other person did for us. But Alexander does this with a different voice than most, tying in recipes (her husband was a chef and artist and they express their love through food), poems from other poets, and even her own first attempt at a poem after her husband dies.
Why do we write about death and grief? As someone who writes a blog on grief, and was recently accused of “not giving it some rest,” what is this need to explore all this through writing? For some of us, it is because writing is how we think and even how we feel. As Alexander explains: “I write to fix him in place, to pass time in his company, to make sure I remember, even though I know I will never forget”(147). What a wonderful phrase, “to pass time in his company,” because that is one of the things Alexander achieves in this book. We come to know and love her husband as we watch her spend time with him in her writing. From this we can focus on our own journeys of grief. It seems paradoxical that in writing about a particular person that Alexander can reach so many of us, but she succeeds. “I wanted those particulars to radiate outward and be meaningful in ever-widening circles. For loss is our common denominator” (206).
Because of the death of my youngest son at the age of six, I read a lot of books about death and grief. As a Christian, I wonder why the atheists write some of the best books on grief (see my review of Julian Barnes‘ Levels of Life). Alexander may not define herself as an atheist as she clearly has a spiritual bent, but there is no belief in an afterlife. Perhaps since they don’t have any hope of an eternal reunion, the atheists or agnostics do a better job of focusing on their current situation. Plus, they don’t have to wrestle with how a loving God allows us to suffer (since there is not a good answer to that).
Elizabeth Alexander Books
Alexander’s exploration of grief is one of the best I’ve read and I recommend it without hesitation. And not just for those grieving, but anyone who values excellent writing on topics of depth. As a poet, Alexander says she thinks in short segments so most of the chapters are quite short and her mix of writing (recipes, poems, prose) make this a unique reading experience.
I Am The Light Sermon
If Alexander is a new name for you, then you are in for a treat. She is an excellent poet and her 2006 work, American Sublime, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, as was The Light of the World. You can visit her site to learn more about her.