Nineteen

“Nineteen” was first published in 1990 in The Venus Hottentot, Elizabeth Alexander’s debut poetry collection. The unrhymed contemporary narrative poem consists of three stanzas, each roughly comprising eight lines. In the poem, the unnamed speaker persona reflects on a love affair experienced by her younger 19-year-old self. Through the prism of the recounted affair, the poet examines important themes of growing up, power and sex, Black identity, and the effects of trauma. An early example of Alexander’s work, the poem carries her distinct signature of regular structure and the use of dramatic persona. Alexander’s poetic style roughly corresponds to Postmodernism in that it is unconstrained by subject and form; however, it is not self-consciously literary. The poet uses vivid, succinct, and informal language to capture a significant moment in time.

Poet Biography

Elizabeth Alexander was born in Harlem, New York (1962) but raised in Washington DC. Her father Clifford Alexander Jr. is a former United States Secretary of the Army and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chairman, while her mother Adele Logan Alexander was a professor of African American women's history at George Washington University. Alexander grew up in a politically aware household and has said in an interview that politics was in the “drinking water” of her home.