I rise to defend Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem.

Members of the vanguard of modern poetry have thrown their barbs, labeling it “perfunctory” and “bureaucratic” and full of cliches.

Those are unusual criticism for her work, which assails conventional language and wrenches loose surreal scenarios. “Sylvia Plath is setting my hair/ on rollers made from orange juice cans,” she writes in one poem. Reserve isn’t her middle name.

So what happened on Jan. 20? Did the muse abandon her? Or should we look for answers beyond the insular club of official poetry critics?

Consider the possibility that she wanted to be accessible. And in that, she succeeded.

My mother enjoyed the poem.

My neighbor who teaches Tae Kwon Do admired the poem, too.

The young woman who serves me coffee most mornings was impressed.

None of them count as poetry scholars, but Alexander’s poem intrigued them. The poem arrested them. In the wake of listening, they became thoughtful.

“Praise Song for the Day” hails language as a metaphor for the magnificent diversity of the American people. “We encounter each other in words/ Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed.”

Every day across America, the “work” of communication accompanies the labor of raising children, the building of bridges or, as Alexander writes, “figuring it out at kitchen tables.”

What is the word that pulls the whole enterprise of living and learning together?

Which word leaves us hopeful that this great this experiment in democracy can someday perfect itself?

The word — of course — is “love.”

“Love beyond marital, filial, national

Love that casts a widening pool of light

Love with no need to pre-empt grievance.”

Language and love may feel like shopworn themes to the literati. But for many people the pairing of the two was a startling juxtaposition.

“Praise Song for the Day” encouraged all Americans to listen to their speech with a new sense of wonderment. The poem served as an introductory lesson that called attention to the interdependence of the commonplace and the sublime.

And for that, Elizabeth Alexander deserves praise.

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a poet and critic living in Charleston, S.C. He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.