Elizabeth Alexander at The Brattle Theatre

Harvard Book Store welcomes Elizabeth Alexander—prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author, renowned poet, educator, scholar, and cultural advocate—for a discussion of her new book, Signals Across Vast Distances: Essays and Tales. She will be joined in conversation by Tracy K. Smith—Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University, 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Life on Mars.

Tickets include admission for one and one hardcover copy of Signals Across Vast Distances pre-signed by the author.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

A call to courage and connection from prize-winning poet and champion of the arts and humanities Elizabeth Alexander.

In this deeply personal book, Elizabeth Alexander gives us profound and galvanizing lessons from culture and life to move through challenging times. In close readings of visionary and beloved poets and writers—Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and June Jordan, among others—Dr. Alexander meditates on how words and values can sustain and inspire us, interweaving her voice with revelatory works of art by some of our most extraordinary visual artists, richly reproduced in the book’s pages.

Her stories of connection—as a daughter, wife, widow, and mother of two sons; reflecting at midlife on her younger days as an aspiring dancer; as a poet at President Obama’s inauguration on the dais alongside her father, a civil rights pioneer; urging radical welcome in our families, communities, and country—engage and move us. Her reflections on the public project of acknowledging historical truths, a focus of her leadership at the Mellon Foundation, model courageous action.

Throughout the book, Alexander poses questions, encouraging readers to recognize the abundant resources we carry within or can access: language, history, art, community, family, our bodies, our stories, and love itself. In luminous and powerful prose, Signals Across Vast Distances calls us to imagine possibilities, take courage, and—in Alexander’s closing words—lead with love.

Elizabeth Alexander is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author, renowned poet, educator, scholar, and cultural advocate. Her memoir, The Light of the World, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award. She composed and recited “Praise Song for the Day” for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration and is currently president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of the arts, culture, and humanities. She lives and works in New York City.

Tracy K. Smith is the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University, and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States and is the author of five poetry collections, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Life on Mars.