The Academy of American Poets’ 2023 Blaney Lecture on Contemporary Poetry & Poetics, “The Scrawny Little Black Girl with the Hasty Pigtails Sounds Out ‘Anemone,’” will be delivered by AAP Chancellor Patricia Smith (CRF 2017) on Thursday, March 23, at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET. This free event will be presented virtually via Crowdcast and with ASL interpretation. A Q&A session will follow the lecture. Register here.

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 (CRF 2012), Joy Harjo, Terrance Hayes (CRF 2015), 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.