Signals Across Vast Distances: Essays and Tales — Elizabeth Alexander in conversation with Jericho Brown

This is an in-person only event and registration is required. Register here – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/signals-across-vast-distances-elizabeth-alexander-jericho-brown-tickets-1996471977428?aff=oddtdtcreator.
This event takes place in the theater of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum (441 John Lewis Freedom Pkwy NE, Atlanta, GA 30307). Doors open at 6:30pm. Event begins promptly at 7:00pm.
PLEASE NOTE: This event will take place in 2 theaters. Once capacity is reached in the primary theater, attendees will be directed to a second theater where the event will be simulcast. Reserving a seat does not guarantee you a seat in the primary theater – arrive early to secure your seat.
Charis and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum welcome Elizabeth Alexander in conversation with Jericho Brown for a celebration of Signals Across Vast Distances: Essays and Tales, 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.
About the author
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.
About the conversation partner
Jericho Brown is the author of three collections of poetry: The Tradition (2019), a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets; and Please (New Issues, 2008), which won the 2009 American Book Award. He is also the editor of the anthology How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill (Amistad, 2023), and The Selected Shepherd (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024), a new retrospective on the work of the important Black, gay poet Reginald Shepherd.
Brown is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Award (2024), the Whiting Writers Award, and fellowships from the The Academy of American Poets, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland. He was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Hurston Wright Poetry Prize, and was elected an Academy Chancellor in 2024. His poems have appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and The Best American Poetry.
Brown lives in Atlanta where he is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing and Interim Director of Creative Writing at Emory University.
About the Event
All attendees must register for the event by selecting a ticket. There will be a limited number of free tickets. You may choose: a free ticket without a book, a single ticket with a book, or a ticket for 2 people that includes one book. Register here- https://www.eventbrite.com/e/signals-across-vast-distances-elizabeth-alexander-jericho-brown-tickets-1996471977428?aff=oddtdtcreator
If you choose the book with ticket option, you will bring your ticket (digitally or on paper) with you to pick up your copy of the book at the event. All books not picked up at the event on 9/25 will be available for pickup at Charis Books and More (184 S. Candler St, Decatur) for 2 weeks.
Doors open at 6:30 pm. Event begins promptly at 7:00 pm.
COVID 19 SAFETY PROTOCOLS + ACCESSIBILITY:
Masks: Face masks are strongly encouraged but not required.
Social Distancing: Attendance will be capped below capacity to ensure social distancing.
The Library and Museum are surrounded by 35 acres of ponds, local wildlife and rolling grounds. There are six handicap parking spaces with ramps leading from the parking lot into the building via ramps. Approaching the Museum entrance from the gardens you will see a courtyard and fountain with concrete/slate walkway on both sides. The circle of flags on the upper east side of the courtyard ramps into the sidewalks. Once inside the Museum lobby access to the public restrooms is by ramp. The public restrooms have handicap stalls and wash basins accessible by wheelchair…