Kwame Alexander on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'

 

[I watched The Late Show, the CBS late-night talk show with Stephen Colbert as host, on Monday night, 13 January 2025.  One of Colbert’s guests was poet and writer of children’s fiction Kwame Alexander, of whom I didn’t think I’d heard.  (It turns out he’d been on The Late Show before about a year ago, but I either forgot that appearance or missed that episode.)

[Alexander’s Encyclopedia Britannica entry says:

Kwame Alexander (born August 21, 1968, New York, New York) is an American poet, author of young adult and children’s fiction, and advocate for introducing literary works and the art of writing to schoolchildren. He gained national prominence after winning the Newbery Medal in 2015 for his novel The Crossover (2014), much of which he wrote in free verse.

Alexander was born to literary parents: his father was a writer and publisher and his mother an English teacher. When he was 12 years old, his family moved to Virginia. After first studying biochemistry at Virginia Tech, Alexander switched to English and developed an interest in poetry under professor and poet Nikki Giovanni. He began his career as an editor, producing The Flow: New Black Poets in Motion (1994). Among his other literary pursuits, he founded the Alexander Publishing Group and its imprint, BlackWords Press (1995–2005). In 2019 Alexander teamed with publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to launch the Versify imprint, under which he helped choose children’s books to publish.

Alexander’s first poetry collection for adults, Just Us: Poems and Counterpoems, 1986–1995, was published in 1995. His other collections include Kupenda: Love Poems (2000), Dancing Naked on the Floor (2005), and And Then You Know: New and Selected Poems (2009). The book Crush: Love Poems (2007) was written for young adults. In Out of Wonder (2017), Alexander and poets Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth created poems in celebration of 20 of their favourite poets. Ekua Holmes, who illustrated Out of Wonder, won the 2018 Coretta Scott King Book Award for her work. In 2020 Alexander published Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope, a collection of poems on historic events, including the killing of George Floyd, the protests of football player Colin Kaepernick, and the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president.

Among his other writing accomplishments, Alexander wrote stories for children. Indigo Blume and the Garden City (2010) tells about a little girl and her rooftop garden. Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band (2011) introduces jazz to young children through animals. Surf’s Up (2016) follows the adventures of two frogs, one who likes to read and the other who likes to surf. In Animal Ark: Celebrating Our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures (2017), Alexander contributed verse to go along with photographs of animals. Published in 2019, The Undefeated is an homage to Black life in the United States. The book was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2020. Kadir Nelson, who illustrated The Undefeated, won the Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award in 2020 for his artwork.

Alexander also wrote books for an older audience. He Said, She Said (2013), for teens, explores the relationship between two seniors in high school: a football player and a social activist. Alexander’s award-winning book The Crossover follows a year in the lives of twin African American 12-year-old boys and their love of basketball. Rebound (2018) is a prequel to The Crossover, focusing on the twins’ father. In Booked (2016), Alexander again used free verse—this time, to explore a boy’s relationship with his family and friends as he navigates a soccer injury, bullying, and his reluctance to read. Working with novelist James Patterson, Alexander combined prose and poetry in Becoming Muhammad Ali (2020), a fictionalized retelling of the boxer’s youth. Solo (2017) and Swing (2018), both written with Mary Rand Hess, deal with weightier topics, such as drug addiction and social divisions, respectively. In 2022 Alexander published The Door of No Return, the first novel in a trilogy about a boy living in what is now Ghana who becomes entrapped in the transatlantic slave trade.

Alexander also wrote about the technical aspects of being an author. He published Do the Write Thing: Seven Steps to Publishing Success (2002) with Nina Foxx. In The Write Thing (2018), he discussed how writing workshops can benefit school-age children.

Besides writing, Alexander has been active in community-based initiatives. In 2006 he founded Book-in-a-Day, a nonprofit educational literacy service. The organization helps to promote reading and writing skills by encouraging children to write poetry and publish their work. In 2012 Alexander cofounded the Literacy Empowerment Action Project (LEAP), which is dedicated to increasing educational opportunities in Ghana. He is also a frequent contributor to Morning Edition, the daily news program on National Public Radio.

[In any case, I was very impressed with him as a talk show guest.  He had a charming and engaging personality and was a great raconteur, so I thought, if I could find a transcript of his interview, I'd run it on Rick On Theater.  I did find one, but it wasn’t like the News Hour transcripts I’m used to—these are full of errors and have no speaker identifications (except "Stephen" for the host, and a symbol for the guest, but no name, and no formatting).  So there was a lot of editing to do, and then I needed to listen to the video to fix all the mistranscriptions and gobbledygook.  (The transcription is clearly machine-generated and no human checked it.)

[So, I re-edited the transcript, which aside from the errors, had little punctuation, so I pretty much repunctuated it as well.  So what you’re about to read is about half computer-created and half mine.]

STEPHEN COLBERT: Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen!

My friends, my next guest is a New York Times best-selling author of 42 books, who has won the Newbery Medal [2015; for “the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children” for The Crossover, his children’s novel in verse] and an Emmy Award [The Crossover (2023) for Outstanding Young Teen Series; on Disney+].  His new book is How Sweet the Sound [Little, Brown and Company, 2025].  Please welcome back to The Late Show, Kwame Alexander!

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE, AND MUSIC.] 

We love poets on The Late Show.  We love having the artists on here who paint the pictures with the words and the rhythm and inflection and unexpected twists and turns and combinations, and I’m just curious: you as a poet—what is it that first drew you to poetry?  When did you discover poetry as a human being?

KWAME ALEXANDER: I was three years old.

COLBERT: You remember!

ALEXANDER: I remember.  I was living on the Upper West Side.  My parents were in graduate school at Columbia University.  My mother read to me every day—Lucille Clifton [African-American poet, writer, and educator; 1936-2010], Nikki Giovanni [African-American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator; 1943-2024], and Langston Hughes [African-American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist; 1901-67].

But my favorite book was a book that went like this: “Fox / Socks / Knox / Box / Fox in socks / Socks in box” [Dr. Seuss, Fox in Socks (Random House, 1965)].  So, ummm . . . at my preschool, there was this kid who didn't like me, and one particular day, I built a castle out of wooden blocks to show my mother so she’d be proud of me when she came to pick me up, but this kid knocked ’em over.  So I went up to him and I used the only weapons I had.  Those were my blocks that you flipped.  Lest you want some quick payback, better fix my quick blocks stack.  [LAUGHTER.]  And he started crying.  [LAUGHTER.]  And so, when my mother came to school, the teacher was like, “Mrs. Alexander, we have a problem.  Your son Kwame is arrogant.  He intimidates all the kids with his words,” and my mother said, “Thank you.”

[NOTE: Alexander recited the Dr. Seuss lines from memory, but he misquoted it slightly.  He did the same with the Nikki Giovanni poem below.  In both cases, I’m transcribing verbatim what the poet said on camera, then I’ll post the correct verses as published in an afterword below.    ~RICK]

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: Mission accomplished!  

You were last here [on 1 February 2024] for your collection of poetry This Is the Honey [Little, Brown and Company, 2020].  You now have How Sweet the Sound: A Soundtrack for America.  This is your 42nd book—who’s counting—and many of your books are for kids.  Do you change anything in the way you write, if the book is for children as opposed to a general public?

ALEXANDER: Not really.  I try to write books that I would have wanted to have read when I was four or ten or 12 and I would love now.  So I’m writing about topics that I think families can read and enjoy together, but certainly, I have a soft spot in my heart for young people because I believe that the mind of an adult begins in the imagination of a child, and what better way to enhance . . . elevate that imagination than through the words on a page.

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: The book is a love letter, How Sweet the Sound . . . [APPLAUSE] . . . the book is a love letter to music.  What makes up the soundtrack to America to you?

ALEXANDER: Well, I believe it’s a symphony of refuge, it’s a score of redemption, it’s a . . . .  Last night I was at the Blue Note [Jazz Club, Greenwich Village] and I saw Sweet Honey in the Rock [all-female, African-American a cappella ensemble].  

COLBERT: Oh.  [SINGS:] “We all . . . everyone of us . . .” [We All . . . Every One of Us, 1983].

ALEXANDER: They sang that. 

COLBERT: They did?

ALEXANDER: Yeah.  And I don't care where you are from, what you are feeling . . . when you hear music, music can heal, it can give you hope.  It can open up a world of possibility, which is what the same thing I think children's books do.

COLBERT: Poetry and lyrics are . . . well, what is the difference to you?  Are they the same thing?

ALEXANDER: No.  I think maybe they are cousins.  Maybe they are kissing cousins. [LAUGHTER – ALEXANDER LAUGHS – MORE LAUGHTER.]  Imagine this, Stephen: lyrics, when they are done right, they need a beautiful guitarist, they need a sax player.  They need musicians to help elevate those words that are on the page.

COLBERT: They’re in relationship to the music that they’re dancing with. 

ALEXANDER: Poetry is the whole band.  Like, you have to do it all in those words on the page.  And I think that makes it special. 

COLBERT: Have you written lyrics?

ALEXABDER: Umm . . . not successfully.

COLBERT: You’ve given it a shot.

ALEXANDER: I’ve given it a shot, and that's when I found out they’re not the same.

COLBERT: One of those first poets that was read to you, the acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni, passed away a few weeks ago [d. 9 December 2024; one of the world’s best-known African-American poets], and I know that she was your mentor.  How did the two of you become close?  That’s an extraordinary experience, to become close to someone who influenced you when you were 3.

ALEXANDER: Well, I met her in 1987.  This was the beginning of our relationship.  I was a sophomore at a place called Virginia Tech [Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg; Giovanni was University Distinguished Professor Emerita at VPI since December 2022].  And she was a visiting professor.  Me, deeming myself a pretty fantastic poet, took her advanced poetry class. 

I think she gave me a C-minus. [LAUGHTER] And so, I was livid and I went to her office and I—I had just discovered jazz music—and so I went and sat down in her office during office hours and I said, I don’t understand why I got a C-minus.  I’m a poet.  I listen to Nancy Wilson [jazz singer; 1937-2018] and I’m channeling my inner jazz and I know what I’m doing.  And she said, “Kwame, I can teach you how to write poetry, but I cannot teach you how to be interesting.”

[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: Oh-ho!  I felt that.

ALEXANDER: That was the beginning of a 37-year relationship.

COLBERT: Are there any words of hers that you would like to leave us with here tonight?

ALEXANDER: Yeah.  Can the band join me on this?

COLBERT: Yeah!  Can you guys . . . [MUSIC.]

ALEXANDER: I know you just wrote a cookbook with your wife [Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert, Does This Taste Funny? (Celadon Books, 2024)], so you might find this apropos.

COLBERT: Okay.

ALEXANDER: It’s called “Still Life with Apron” [in Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (William Morrow, 2013)] by Nikki Giovanni. 

I would like to see you
Cooking
I would like for you to cook
For me
I would like to see you decide
Upon the menu
Go to the market
And pick the fruit
The vegetables
The fish
I would like to see you smell the fish I would like for you to Test the
     flesh for freshness and firmness
I would like to watch you
In the bakery by the dinner rolls
Deciding: Rolls or Crusty Bread
I would like to watch you run back
To get the Goat Butter
 
I would like to be sitting in a corner
And you
Intent upon your meal
Not noticing me
When you go to the wine store
I would like to watch you wrestle with red or white wine
Of course, because it is fish, but red
Is so Seductive and who ever fell in love
Over a glass of white wine?  [LAUGHTER]
 
I—uncharacteristically on time—
Would like to greet you
I would like for you to greet me
In a butcher’s apron
I would like for you to greet me only
In an apron
I would like to watch the movement inside the
     apron
As I undress for you
I would like to watch you walk
No
Stroll to the closet
Where you bring out your buffalo plaid
     dressing gown
Your pilly much-washed dressing gown that
     smells like you
After you shower After you brush your teeth
After you comb your hair
I would like to embrace your odor
I would like to embrace
Your essence as we sit down to eat
I would like you to cook for me
Yes
I would like that
Very much

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: Thank you for that.  How Sweet the Sound is available tomorrow!

Kwame Alexander, everybody!  We will be right back!

[The verse from Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks goes like this (I’ll try to duplicate its original typography as well):

Fox
Socks
Box
Knox
Knox in box.
Fox in socks.
Knox on fox in socks on box.

 [Nikki Giovanni’s 2013 poem “Still Life with Apron” (as published in Chasing Utopia; again, I’ll attempt to replicate the poets format and typography):

I would like to see you
Cooking
I would like for you to cook
For me
I would like to see you decide
Upon a menu
Go to the market
And pick the fruit
The vegetables
The fish
I would like to see you smell the fish Test the
     flesh for freshness and firmness
I would like to watch you
In the bakery
In the bakery by the dinner rolls
Deciding: Rolls or Crusty Bread
I would watch you run back
To get the Goat Butter
 
I would like to be sitting in a corner
And you
Intent upon your meal
Not noticing me
When you go to the wine store
I would watch you wrestle with red or white
White, of course, because it’s fish, but red
Is Seductive and who ever fell in love
Over a glass of white wine?  
 
I—uncharacteristically on time—
Would like you to greet me
In a butcher’s apron
I would like to watch you greet me only
In an apron
You would ask me to undress
To undress for you
Before I sit down at the beautiful table
Before you hand me my glass
You would ask me to undress
I would like to watch you watch me
Undressing for you
I would like to watch the movement inside the
     apron
As I undress for you
I would like to watch you walk
No
Stroll to your closet
Where you bring out your old buffalo plaid
     dressing gown
Your pilly much-washed dressing gown that
     smells like you
After you brush your teeth
After you shower After you comb your hair
I would like to embrace your odor
Your odor Your essence as we sit down to eat
I would like for you to cook for me
I would like that
Very much

[And for those interested in Alexander’s new book, How Sweer the Sound, which brought him to The Late Show earlier this week, here’s a review from Kirkus Reviews, 12 October 2024:

HOW SWEET THE SOUND

by Kwame Alexander; illustrated by Charly Palmer

A work whose lyrical and artistic genius only becomes more apparent upon rereads.

A journey through American music history as shaped by Black artists and traditions.

Fittingly, given the U.S.’s long and complicated racial history, this work takes its title from the beloved hymn “Amazing Grace,” written by a slave trader turned abolitionist [John Newton (English; 1725-1807)]. The book begins on the African plains: “Listen to the fireside chorus / of the motherland / to the talking drums / dancing beneath the gold sun / that beat a bold tapestry / of yesterday’s stories / and tomorrow’s dreams.” Likewise, the author has created a beautiful tapestry, woven with song titles and musical references. With each introduction to a different genre, he implores readers to “listen.” Laced with powerful imagery, alliteration, and onomatopoeia (“BUM-DUN! BUM-DUN!”), his verse begs to be sung. Taking a comprehensive approach, Alexander explores regional styles such as go-go alongside internationally known genres, including gospel, jazz, and hip-hop. Palmer’s distinctive illustrations offer the perfect accompaniment. Bold colors set the mood, while his brush strokes evoke movement and convey strong emotion as he depicts everything from enslaved people joyfully dancing in New Orleans’ Congo Square to fists raised high for Black power to performances by Chuck Berry [1926-2017], Prince [1958-2016], Lauryn Hill [b. 1975], and other musicians. Detailed backmatter defines terms and explains the significance of the music referenced.

A work whose lyrical and artistic genius only becomes more apparent upon rereads. (Informational picture book. 5-10)

[How Sweet the Sound is available through Amazon ($17.09), Barnes & Noble ($18.99), Strand Book Store ($18.99), and Books of Wonder ($18.99).]