'Poetry Says It Better': Academy Award-Winning Actress Ellen Burstyn in Conversation with Pamela Anderson

Event Details

Celebrate National Poetry Month with renowned actress, memoirist, and poetry scholar Ellen Burstyn as she shares poems that have shaped her life — featured in her new book, Poetry Says It Better: Poems to Help You Wake Up. Joined by fellow acclaimed actress and writer Pamela Anderson in the Library's Trefz Forum, Burstyn will offer a heartfelt reflection on why poetry matters, and why we celebrate it still.

Each ticket includes a signed copy of the book.

Why You Should Come

“As an actress, I recognize the importance of transforming the words on a page into something grander through performance. The act of reciting poetry has only made me feel more strongly about how powerful performing can be. Even with my work in theatre and film, reading a poem out loud has always been a steady, meaningful part of my creative life. The rhythm, rhyme, and formations of words are fundamental to the experience of reading poetry, and I find that hearing poetry can completely alter my understanding of a poem.” —Ellen Burstyn

"In this beautiful volume, Ellen Burstyn celebrates poetic magic and shares her favorite works. Now into her nineties, Ellen reveals she had an evangelical response to learning poetry even as a child and would memorize and recite the works of Edna St. Vincent Millay to envelope herself in the poet’s deeper emotional landscape." —HarperCollins

About Poetry Says It Better

As Burstyn continued her epic rise through film and theater — eventually winning an Oscar, a Tony, a BAFTA, and an Emmy — poetry gave voice to her experience as no other literary art form could. She never went anywhere without her curated “poetry pack.” While waiting on set, in rehearsal, on a train, or just relaxing, she found comfort in verse.

For nearly nine decades, poetry has led Burstyn on a life of adventure, from a pilgrimage to Rumi’s birthplace to a friendship with Maya Angelou, during which the poet read her work in Ellen’s movie trailer, to selecting the poems to join her in love, in motherhood and in grief.

Featuring work by W.B. Yeats, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rainer Maria Rilke, Mary Oliver, William Wordsworth, Edgar Allan Poe, Rumi, William Ernest Henley, and others, Poetry Says It Better is a perfect daily companion for everyone looking to deepen and add meaning to their life experience. Throughout, Burstyn’s charming voice and luminous insights help readers meet her in this poetic celebration — soul to soul."

About the Speakers

Ellen Burstyn’s illustrious 69-year acting career encompasses film, stage, and television. In 1975, she became only the third woman in history to win both the Tony Award and the Academy Award in the same year, for her work in Bernard Slade’s Same Time, Next Year on Broadway and in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, for which she also received a Golden Globe nomination and a British Academy Award for Best Actress.

Burstyn has been nominated for an Academy Award five other times for The Last Picture Show (1972), The Exorcist (1974), Same Time, Next Year (1979), Resurrection (1981), and Requiem for a Dream (2000).  She became a “triple crown winner” when she won her first Emmy for a guest appearance in Law & Order: SVU (2009), to add to her Oscar and Tony. She also won an Emmy in 2013 for USA’s mini-series Political Animals. She has received six additional Emmy nominations.

Her most recent films include Draft Day (2014), The Calling (2014), Interstellar (2014), The Age of Adaline (2015), Custody (2016), Wiener Dog (2016), Pieces of a Woman (2020), Queen Bees (2021) Mother Couch (2023) and the soon to be released Place to Be. Some of her additional theater credits include the Broadway productions of 84 Charing Cross Road (1982), Shirley Valentine (1989), Sacrilege (1995), and the London production of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour (2011).  In 2014, she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.

Burstyn was the first woman elected president of Actors Equity Association (1982-85) and serves as the co-president of the famed Actors Studio with Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin. Burstyn holds four honorary doctorates. She lectures throughout the country on a wide range of topics and became a national best-selling author with the publication of her memoir, Lessons in Becoming Myself (2006).

Pamela Anderson is an artist who has com­bined her work as an actress with a pas­sion­ate com­mit­ment to phil­an­thropy and advo­ca­cy, leav­ing a last­ing mark on the cul­tur­al imagination. Ander­son appeared on the big screen oppo­site Liam Nee­son in Paramount’s Naked Gun reboot. This sum­mer, Ander­son com­plet­ed a run in the pres­ti­gious Williamstown The­atre Festival’s pro­duc­tion of Camino Real, and will appear next in Karim Aïnouz’s Rose­bush Prun­ing. Soon in theatres: Kor­nel Mondruczo’s Place to Be, in which she plays Burstyn’s daughter.

Anderson’s film and tele­vi­sion career began with her role as Lisa the “Tool Time” girl on ABC’s hit series Home Improve­ment. She then joined Bay­watch, which became the most-watched series in the world, with over 1.1 bil­lion view­ers week­ly. Among oth­er projects, Ander­son lat­er starred in the film Barb Wire and the tele­vi­sion series VIP, which she co-cre­at­ed with J.F. Lawton.

Anderson, along with her sons Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee, recently launched a film and television company called And-Her-Sons Productions. They have also founded Son­sie Skin­care, a sustainable, veg­an, and cru­el­ty-free beau­ty brand that cel­e­brates bal­anced living.

In 2023, Ander­son released her New York Times best-­selling mem­oir Love, Pamela and starred in the Emmy-nom­i­nat­ed Net­flix doc­u­men­tary Pamela, A Love Sto­ry, both of which gave an inti­mate and true glimpse into her jour­ney. She continues to write via her popular weekly Substack newsletter The Open Jour­nal with Pamela Anderson. Among her oth­er recent act­ing work, Ander­son made her Broad­way debut in 2022 as Roxy Hart in Chica­go, for which she received crit­i­cal acclaim across the board and a Play­bill Award. Ander­son­’s star­ring in the musi­cal served as a moment of rein­ven­tion and a new direc­tion in her career.