The prize-winning poet and champion of the arts speaks with The New Yorker theater critic about her deeply personal new collection of essays and tales.

Elizabeth Alexander’s new book, Signals Across Vast Distances, is a collection of galvanizing lessons from culture and life on how to move through challenging times. Alexander delivers close readings of visionary and beloved writers including Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and June Jordan to meditate on how words and values can sustain and inspire us. The book interweaves revelatory works of art by some of our most extraordinary visual artists. It is also filled with her own stories of connection—as a daughter, wife, widow, and mother—and reflections on her experiences as an aspiring dancer, a poet at President Obama’s inauguration, and, currently, as the leader of the Mellon Foundation, the largest private funder of the arts, culture, and humanities in the United States. 

Alexander speaks with Hilton Als about imagining possibilities, taking courage, and leading with love.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

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.

Hilton Als is an award-winning journalist, critic and curator. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1994. Prior to The New Yorker, Als was a staff writer for the Village Voice and an editor-at-large at Vibe. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (2017), Yale’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize (2016), the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism (2002-03), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2000). His first book, The Women, was published in 1996. His next book, White Girls, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Lambda Literary Award in 2014. His most recent book, My Pinup, was published in November 2022. In 2017, he curated the critically lauded exhibition Alice Neel, Uptown, which traveled from David Zwirner, New York, to Victoria Miro, London and Venice. In 2019, Als presented God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin at David Zwirner, New York, followed by Frank Moore at, David Zwirner, New York (2021) and Toni Morrison’s Black Book, at David Zwirner, New York (2022). He curated a series of three successive exhibitions for the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, of the work of Celia Paul (2018), Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (2019), and Njideka Akunyili Crosby (2022). In 2022, he curated Joan Didion: What She Means at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, which traveled to the Perez Art Museum Miami. He is currently a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and has also taught at Columbia University's School of the Arts, Princeton University, Wesleyan University, and the Yale School of Drama.

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ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service at least two weeks in advance of the event: please submit your request via this form. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. 

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. Media used over the course of the conversation will be accompanied by alt text and/or audio description. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation at least two weeks in advance of the event: please submit your request via this form.

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Elizabeth Alexander © Ike Edeano for Mellon Foundation