The Blaney Lecture on contemporary poetry and poetics is offered annually by a prominent poet. On Wednesday, February 23, 2022, Utah Poet Laureate Paisley Rekdal delivered this year's Blaney Lecture, “Beyond Empathy, Beyond the Archive: Notes on Poetic Representation.”

Paisley Rekdal is the author of six volumes of poetry, including Nightingale (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), Imaginary Vessels (Copper Canyon Press, 2016), Animal Eye (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), winner of the 2013 Rilke Prize from the University of North Texas, and A Crash of Rhinos (University of Georgia Press, 2000), winner of the University of Georgia Press’ Contemporary Poetry Series Award. Rekdal was named poet laureate of Utah in 2017. In 2019, she was named an inaugural Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow.

Past lectures have been given by Elizabeth Alexander, Richard Blanco, Anne Carson, Carolyn Forché, Joy Harjo, Terrance Hayes, Susan Howe, Adrian Matejka, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, and Claudia Rankine. The 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.