The Light of the World: A Memoir

Beauty. I kept putting off my reading of Elizabeth Alexander’s memoir titled, The Light of the World. I knew it expressed this poet’s grief at the death of her artist husband, Ficre Ghebreyesus. This book is her wail, her lament and her tribute to Ficre. It is some of the finest writing I’ve read in decades, and I wish I hadn’t put off reading it. Here’s a sample (p. 178): ‘“Oh beauty, you are the light of the world!’ was the quotation we chose for the bench by the side of the grave, from a poem by Derek Walcott my teacher, whose words Ficre and I revered. The exaltation with which we met, and beauty itself, the things we both chased and tried to re-create in our work, that which lights the world and its darkness that he understood so well. The poem says it better than any scripture.” This is a memoir of beauty, both beauty as it is found around us, and beauty as it is created by the artist. Read this book: embrace the beauty. Rating: Five-star (I love it) Click here to purchase The Light of the World from amazon.com.