The Blaney Lecture

The Blaney Lecture on contemporary poetry and poetics is offered annually by a prominent poet. Past lectures have been given by Elizabeth Alexander, Richard Blanco, Anne Carson, Carolyn Forché, Joy Harjo, Terrance Hayes, Jane Hirshfield, Susan Howe, Adrian Matejka, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, Claudia Rankine, and Patricia Smith.

The Blaney Lecture was created in memory of former Academy of American Poets Board member Dr. Dorothy Gulbenkian Blaney, past president of Cedar Crest College and champion of women and education, by a gift from her estate.

The Academy of American Poets' programs are made possible by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.


Past Blaney Lectures

Jane Hirshfield, Making the Invisible Visible: Some Thoughts on Poetry & Science, 2024

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audience Q&A

 

Patricia Smith, The Scrawny Little Black Girl with the Hasty Pigtails Sounds Out ‘Anemone,’ 2023

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Paisley Rekdal, Beyond Empathy, Beyond the Archive: Notes on Poetic Representation, 2022

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Adrian Matejka, Let’s Stay Together: Notes About Black Poetry & Community, 2020 - 2021

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Terrance Hayes, Survey of an American Century, 2019

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Alicia Ostriker, Containing Multitude: Poetry and the City, 2018

 

Claudia Rankine, 2017

 

Sharon OldsFavorite Moments in Poems from Chaucer to Clifton2016

 

Joy Harjo, Ancestors: A Mapping of Indigeneous Poetry & Poets, 2015

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Richard Blanco, On Becoming A Presidential Inaugural Poet, 2014

 

Carolyn ForchéNot Persuasion, But Transport: The Poetry of Witness, 2013

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Elizabeth Alexander, Rethinking Lucille Clifton, 2012

 

Susan Howe, The Whispered Rush, Telepathy of Archives, 2011

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Anne Carson, 2010

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