On Sunday, November 13, 2016, just days after the 2016 presidential election, the Academy of American Poets and Brain Pickings presented a pop-up reading, “Verses for Hope,” in New York City’s Washington Square Park, featuring a number of noted poets and artists.

In this video, Academy of American Poets Chancellor Elizabeth Alexander reads her poem “Praise Song for the Day,” which she wrote for the occasion of Barack Obama’s first presidential inauguration, on January 20, 2008.