Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, an essayist and a playwright. She was born in Harlem, New York City, in 1962. She went to Yale University and then studied poetry and took her Masters at Boston University. She also received a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Alexander has worked as a teacher at Haverford College, at the University of Chicago and at Yale. She has also worked as a reporter for The Washington Post. She is now teaching English language and literature, African-American literature, and Gender Studies at Yale University.

Her work have been published in several periodicals and journals and she was selected to recite one of her poems at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama. Professor Alexander was also nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize of poetry. She has written five books of poetry, two collections of essays and a play.