Vanessa Willoughby

On June 6, poet, essayist, playwright, and 2016 MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine launched the New York premiere of her first published play, a new one-act called The White Card, at the New York Public Library (NYPL) Steven A. Schwarzman building.

Poetry’s not dead—at least, it was very much alive on the night Dr. Carla Hayden, the 14th Librarian of Congress, and the 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, engaged in an illuminating conversation at the Schomburg Center in New York City’s Harlem.