2024 Poetry & the Creative Mind | Archived Event

Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown is the author of The Tradition, winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry; The New Testament, which received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, in addition to being named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal; and Please, which received the 2009 American Book Award. His work has also been included in Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies.

Brown has taught at the University of Houston, San Diego State University, and the University of San Diego, as well as at numerous conferences and workshops. He is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University in Atlanta and the director of its creative writing program. In January 2024, Brown was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

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Miles Hardingwood

Miles Hardingwood is a poet, writer, and activist from Brooklyn, New York. He is a senior at Hunter College High School, where he cofounded PASSWord, Hunter’s poetry and slam/spoken word club. Hardingwood is also a 2022 New York City Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador. He has attended both the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. He has volunteered with Gallery Players and the People’s Theatre Project. He was also a District 39 Youth Fellow.

Hardingwood’s poetry has received a Scholastic Art & Writing Award, a National Gold Medal, and an American Voices Medal. He will attend Brown University in the fall.

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Phillipa Soo

Phillipa Soo’s Broadway credits include originating the role of Eliza Hamilton in Hamilton, for which she received a Tony nomination and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, portraying both Guinevere in Aaron Sorkin’s recent revival of Camelot, and Cinderella in Into the Woods, as well as the title characters in both Amelie and The Parisian Woman. Her off-Broadway credits include the roles of Natasha in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 and Inez in Suffs.

Soo’s film credits include starring in One True Loves opposite Simu Liu and Luke Bracey, The Broken Hearts Gallery, Tick, Tick... Boom!, and playing the lead role of Chang’e in Netflix’s animated hit Over the Moon. She made her feature film debut in Fabien Constant’s Here and Now opposite Sarah Jessica Parker.

Soo’s television credits include the TV adaptation of Hamilton, which received an Emmy nomination, the award-winning series Dopesick (Hulu), and regular roles in both Shining Girls (Apple TV) and The Code (CBS).

Glenn Ligon

Glenn Ligon is an artist living and working in New York. Throughout his career, he has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature, and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. Important solo exhibitions include Post-Noir at Carre d’Art in Nîmes (2022); Call and Response at Camden Arts Centre in London (2014); America, which debuted at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York then traveled nationally (2011); and Some Changes, which debuted at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto then traveled internationally (2005). Ligon’s work has been shown in major international exhibitions, including the Istanbul Biennial (2019, 2011), Venice Biennale (2015, 1997), Berlin Biennale (2014), and Documenta 11 (2002).

Emanuel Ax

Born to Polish parents in Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a boy. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists series and, in 1974, won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.

Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987. He has received Grammy Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy Award-winning recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004–05 season, Ax contributed to an International Emmy Award-winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust, which aired on the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Ax is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University.

J Wortham

J Wortham is a sound healer, reiki practitioner, herbalist, and community care worker oriented towards healing justice and liberation. They are also a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and a cohost of the podcast Still Processing. J is the editor, with Kimberly Drew, of the visual anthology Black Futures, a 2020 Editors’ Choice by the New York Times Book Review, published by One World. J is currently working on a book about the body and dissociation for Penguin Press called “Work of Body.”

Carrie Coon

Carrie Coon currently stars in the HBO drama series The Gilded Age as Bertha Russell, as well as in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, released by Sony. She will next appear in Azazel Jacobs’s His Three Daughters and was recently cast in season three of the Emmy Award-winning series The White Lotus. Coon’s breakthrough film role came in 2014’s highly acclaimed Gone Girl. On television, she starred in both HBO’s The Leftovers and FX’s Fargo. In 2017, Coon made history by winning the first-ever double TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Drama for her work in both series. For Fargo, she also earned an Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Additional film credits include Matt Ruskin’s Boston Strangler; Sean Durkin’s The Nest, for which she received critical acclaim; Steve McQueen’s Widows; Anthony and Joe Russo’s Marvel blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War; and Steven Spielberg’s The Post.

Coon’s stage work includes starring in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opposite Tracy Letts, Amy Morton, and Madison Dirks at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. The production next opened on Broadway and went on to win the 2013 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Coon received both a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play and a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut. Other theater credits are The March, Three Sisters, Mary Page Marlowe, Bug, and Mary Jane.

Ricardo Maldonado

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado was born and raised in Puerto Rico. A graduate of Tufts and Columbia University’s School of the Arts, he is the author of The Life Assignment (Four Way Books, 2020), a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, one of Remezcla’s Best Books by Latina or Latin American Authors, and Silver Medalist for the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award.

Maldonado is the Academy of American Poets's President and Executive Director. He is the recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, CantoMundo, Queer|Art|Mentorship, and the T. S. Eliot and Hawthornden foundations.

Courtney B. Vance

Courtney B. Vance is an award-winning actor with stage and screen credits. His debut as Spc. Abraham ‘Doc’ Johnson in Hamburger Hill launched a prolific cinematic career that includes noteworthy films such as The Hunt for Red October, The Preacher’s Wife, and The Adventures of Huck Finn.

From Vance’s portrayal of Johnnie Cochran in FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story to Uncle George in HBO’s critically acclaimed drama-horror series Lovecraft Country to his star turn in NatGeo’s Genius: Aretha as Rev. C. L. Franklin, he has earned two Emmy Awards, a Tony, a Critics Choice Award, a Black Reel TV Award, and multiple NAACP Image Awards, as well as Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Golden Globe, and Hollywood Critics Association nominations. Vance’s feature film Heist 88, in which he both stars and produced through Bassett Vance Productions, aired on both Paramount Plus and Showtime Networks, where it was one of 2023’s most watched original films on the network. Heist 88 also earned three NAACP Image Award nominations, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Television Movie for Vance, Outstanding Television Movie Drama, and Outstanding Writing for a Television Movie Drama. Vance is also the recipient of the Bounce Trumpet Awards Excellence in Entertainment Award and the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) Honors Award for Excellence in the Arts. He earned a Grammy nomination for his narration of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book Accessory to War. Vance’s current project, 61st Street, a criminal-justice drama that will air on the CW Network, earned him a best TV acting award from the African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA).

His book, The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain and Reclaiming Their Power, cowritten with Dr. Robin L. Smith and award-winning journalist Charisse Jones, was published in 2023. Vance is also chairman of the SAG AFTRA Foundation.

Rebecca Hall

Rebecca Hall is a British American actress and filmmaker who boasts a diverse career spanning cinema, theater, and television. Notable for her versatile performances, she has collaborated with esteemed directors and earned acclaim for her compelling portrayals.

In her latest film, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, directed by Adam Wingard, Hall reprises her role as Ilene Andrews in the MonsterVerse installment, which broke box-office records upon its release. Additionally, Hall recently wrapped filming for Ella McCay, a feature by James L. Brooks. Her notable performances include roles in Christine, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and The Night House. Hall’s directorial debut, Passing, garnered critical praise at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Beyond film, Hall has made impactful contributions to both television and the stage, receiving accolades for her work in series such as Tales from the Loop and Parade’s End, as well as for her stage performances in the productions Mrs. Warren’s Profession and As You Like It. Upcoming, she will star in the BBC television adaptation of The Listeners, based on the acclaimed Canadian novel.

Reverend Adriene Thorne

The Reverend Adriene Thorne is the eighth senior minister of the historic Riverside Church in the City of New York and the first African American woman to hold the position. She received her master of divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion and completed postgraduate studies in pastoral care and counseling at the Blanton-Peale Institute and Counseling Center.

Thorne is a healer, a Presbyterian minister, and a classically trained dancer who uses movement to heal bodies both in the church and the community. Thorne’s background in the performing arts includes credits with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Metropolitan Opera, and the world-famous Radio City Rockettes.

Corey Stoll

Corey Stoll can currently be seen in both the hit Broadway production of Branden Jacob-Jenkins’s Appropriate with Sarah Paulson and on Netflix in Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon.

Well known to both film and television audiences, some of Stoll’s favorite roles include his work in Billions as Mike Prince; the Ant-Man film series, playing Darren Cross/MODOK; and Midnight in Paris as Ernest Hemingway, for which he earned an Independent Spirit nomination. Other significant film and television work includes West Side Story, The Many Saints of Newark, Ryan Murphy’s Ratched, four seasons of Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain, and the first season of David Fincher’s House of Cards, for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination.

Born and raised in New York, theater is Stoll’s first love. Highlights include playing the title role in Macbeth at Classic Stage Company (CSC), Iago in Othello, and Brutus in Julius Caesar at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Delacorte Theater. He also appeared in Lynn Nottage’s breakthrough play Intimate Apparel, opposite Viola Davis, a role for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination.

Merve Emre

Merve Emre is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University and the director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism. Her books include Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America; The Personality Brokers (selected as one of the best books of 2018 by the New York Times, The Economist, NPR, and The Spectator); The Ferrante Letters (winner of the 2021 PROSE Award for Literature); and The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway. She has also been awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize, the Robert B. Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism, and the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker.

Sterlin Harjo

Sterlin Harjo is an award-winning filmmaker of Seminole/ Muscogee heritage from Holdenville, Oklahoma. Now based in Tulsa, Harjo is the cocreator and showrunner of Reservation Dogs (FX Productions), a comedy series following four Indigenous teenage friends living on a reservation in Oklahoma, which has just completed its third and final season. After its first season, Reservation Dogs garnered a 2022 Peabody Award, a 2022 Television Academy Honor, a 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Comedy Series, an American Film Institute Award, and won Best Breakthrough Series (under 40 minutes) at the 2021 Gotham Awards.

Currently, Harjo’s series The Sensitive Kind and Poster Girls are in development with FX Productions. Paramount Plus recently acquired his series Yellowbird, which he cocreated with Erica Tremblay.

Paul Giamatti

Paul Giamatti most recently starred in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, which won him a Golden Globe Award and a Critics Choice Award as well as an Academy Award nomination. Other select film credits include Private Life, 12 Years a Slave, American Splendor, Sideways, and Barney’s Version, which earned him a Golden Globe Award. Giamatti also won a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award and a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (now, the Critics Choice Award) in addition to receiving Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his work in Cinderella Man.

On television, for seven seasons, Giamatti starred in the Showtime hit Billions. Other TV credits include the second season of 30 Coins, Lodge 49, and Downton Abbey. Giamatti won a SAG Award for his work in the HBO movie Too Big to Fail and won Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe Awards for his portrayal of the title character in HBO’s seven-part miniseries John Adams. Outside of acting, Giamatti cohosts the podcast Chinwag with author and philosopher Stephen Asma.

Tess O'Dwyer

Tess O’Dwyer serves as chair of the board of directors for the Academy of American Poets. She provides strategic planning and fundraising counsel to leaders of the nonprofit sector. Her client roster includes cultural museums, performing arts companies, social justice agencies, schools, and universities. Prior to her consultancy, O'Dwyer served as Vice President for Cultural Affairs at the Americas Society, Director of Development at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Associate Director of Individual Giving at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. She earned her MA in English from Rutgers University and is also an award-winning translator of Latin American and Puerto Rican poetry and fiction. Her books in translation include the social realist novel Martin Rivas (Oxford, 2000) by Alberto Blest Gana and the postmodern classics Empire of Dreams (Yale, 1994) and Yo-Yo Boing! (AmazonCrossing, 2011) by Giannina Braschi. O’Dwyer co-edited Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas (Taylor & Francis) and Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020). Winner of the Columbia University Translation Center Award, she has served as a Board member of Harvard University’s Cultural Agents Initiative, The Evergreen Review, and PEN America.

Meryl Streep

For almost forty-five years, Meryl Streep has brought a varied and vivid array of characters to life.

Within three years of receiving her MFA with honors from Yale University, she made her Broadway debut, won an Emmy for Holocaust, and received her first Academy Award nomination for The Deer Hunter. She has since won three Academy Awards, and in 2018, in a record that is unsurpassed, she earned her twenty-first Academy Award nomination for her role as Katharine Graham in The Post.

Streep was most recently featured in season three of Hulu’s hit series Only Murders in the Building. Just before that, she starred in the first episode of the television series Extrapolations, an eight-part series on Apple TV+ exploring the human stories impacted by climate change in the near future. She recently starred in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up for Netflix, Ryan Murphy’s film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical The Prom for Netflix, and Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk for HBO Max. She also served as producer on the documentary film Sell/ Buy/Date.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Streep has been awarded a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government. She is also the recipient of an Honorary César by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma and an Honorary Golden Bear by the Berlin International Film Festival. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 2008 and the 2010 National Medal of Arts from former President Obama. In 2011, she received a Kennedy Center Honor, and in 2014, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Streep holds the Barnard Medal of Distinction from Barnard College as well as honorary degrees from the City College of New York (CCNY), Lafayette College, Middlebury College, the University of New Hampshire, and from Dartmouth, Harvard, Indiana, Princeton, and Yale universities.

Special Thanks

Readers

Jericho Brown
Miles Hardingwood
Phillipa Soo
Glenn Ligon
Emanuel Ax
J Wortham
Carrie Coon
Courtney B. Vance
Rebecca Hall
Reverend Adriene Thorne
Corey Stoll
Merve Emre
Sterlin Harjo
Paul Giamatti
Meryl Streep

Executive Producers

Larry Berger and Anouk Markovits
Alexandra C. Jackson
Susan and John Jackson
Andrew Schiff and Alexandra Wolfe Schiff
Tess O’Dwyer
William Zabel and Deborah Miller Zabel

Producers

Ian Kennedy
Shelly and Tony Malkin
Elizabeth Sobol
Eric and Elizabeth Warren

Associate Producers

Elisabeth Carter, MEd, MFA
Michael Jacobs and Sheridan Hay
Eric Rayman
Maurice Tempelsman
Chaim Wachsberger
Elizabeth Wade and Colin Rafferty

Sponsors

Alfred A. Knopf
Expedition Press
Fortier Public Relations
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
Graywolf Press
W.W. Norton & Company

with additional support from

Frederick Luis Aldama, Virginia Anderson, Michael A. Boyd, Dr. Norma Cantú, Sidney Clifton, Patricia Creegan, Ellen C. de Saint Phalle, Margaret H. Douglas-Hamilton, Diane Faissler, Jordan Fields, Jude M. Ford, Linda Nemec Foster, Tracie D. Hall, Tom Healy and Fred P. Hochberg, Steven Holl, Helen and Frank Houghton, Jazz Generation, Marilyn Kallet, Camille Lannan and Yury Gitman, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Ricardo Maldonado, Susan E. Master, Bruno Navasky and Melissa Ozawa, Kaye C. Newbury, Gwenn A. Nusbaum, Eric Rayman, David Rockefeller, Jr., Francesco Scattone, Jo Seibel, Jan Serr & John Shannon, Valerie Sopher, Michael Stephens, Rose Styron