A long time ago a friend recommended to a woman from Hachette Book Group that I be sent a copy of Elizabeth Alexander’s book. I remember being so excited when it arrived in the mail, but as is often the case reading kept slipping off of my to-do (to-enjoy) list, replaced instead by laundry, work research, or sleep. It sat on my nightstand as a beacon of my inability to end the day with time left for me, until my mom came to visit. She was barely in the door when I said, “Here, I want you to give this book a try, I think you might like it.” She smiled, tired from the cross-country trip, but always game for a book. “Thanks,” she…