Echoing the words of her poem, "Praise Song for the Day" that she read at President Obama's inauguration last year, Elizabeth Alexander believes it's all about the work you are willing to do.

She told a rapt audience at the Drue Heinz Lectures Monday night:

"Work is the only antidote to things that make it hard to do the work," and then the Yale University professor repeated it.

Her work ethic came through in these lines from the poem:

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.

The writing of poetry, rather than the reading of it, was her subject, spurred by the experience of being asked to write a poem marking the administration of the nation's first African-American president. Her talk's title was "Writing in Public: Adventures of An Inaugural Poet." (See her Inauguration Day poem, "Praise Song for the Day," below.)

"It was the most unusual thing to happen to me," said the chair of the African-American Studies Department and author of four poetry collections.

She received the assignment Dec. 17 and, faced with what she called the creation of "an artifact of the moment and its aura of change," went to work. The poet compared her creation process to making soup.

First comes the base or "mirepoix," then the addition of strength from a "carcass or shank." Then comes the "long simmer" or what she calls the "hard part of writing. The longer it simmers, the better the poem."

It was the "overwhelming and strange" response to her poem that proved her real education, she said, as bags and bags of mail and hundreds of electronic messages flooded her office. Ms. Alexander singled out a few, including one from the United Farm Workers Union:

"Thank you for using the word, 'lettuce.' "

"I learned that the world is full of love. I learned the world is also full of hate," reported the poet whose warm, personal style that turned her audience into close friends within minutes would seem to belie that reaction.

"There is such a culture of negativity in our country right now. We really need to do something about it," she said to applause. "But if black people hadn't figured out how to ignore all of that hate, they wouldn't have survived here. They grew a second skin and toughened up."

Whether it's picking lettuce under a hot sun or reading your poem in the hot glare of a presidential inauguration, doing the best job you can is the best way to handle it, Ms. Alexander said. Or, as she told a sixth-grader who asked her how to become a writer, "Keep writing and don't stop."

In other Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures news, young adult writer Sharon Flake's appearance in its Black, White and Read All Over series is rescheduled for March 20 at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall at 10:30 a.m.

The PEN/Faulkner fiction prize judges Tuesday nominated these authors and their 2009 books as finalists for the $15,000 prize:

Sherman Alexie for "War Dances;" Barbara Kingsolver for "The Lacuna"; Lorraine M. Lopez for "Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories"; Lorrie Moore for "A Gate at the Stairs"; and Colson Whitehead for "Sag Harbor."

The winner will be announced March 23 and the award will be bestowed May 8 in Washington, D.C.

Each day we go about our business,

walking past each other, catching each other's

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each

one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,

repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,

words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark

the will of some one and then others, who said

I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.

We need to find a place where we are safe.

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,

others by first do no harm or take no more

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,

love that casts a widening pool of light,

love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,

any thing can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

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