Poet and sportswriter Rowan Ricardo Phillips to read Oct. 17

Writer and poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips will read from his latest work as part of the Fall 2024 Barbara & David Zalaznick Reading Series. The event will be held in the Rhodes-Rawling Auditorium, Klarman Hall KG70, on Oct. 17 at 5 p.m. A book signing and reception will follow the reading, in partnership with Buffalo Street Books. The event is free and open to the public.


“Rowan Ricardo Phillips is a renowned sportswriter, and has written extensively on baseball, soccer, and tennis. He is, however, first and foremost a poet of the highest order, full of formal sophistication, lyrical possibility, and musical syncopation. He will come to us with his new book of poetry,” said Valzhyna Mort, associate professor of literatures in English and director of the Creative Writing Program in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S).

Phillips is the author of seven books of poetry, prose and translation. His many honors include the Whiting Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, the Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book Award and the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award. Phillips has also been a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry and an NAACP Image Award, and has been long-listed for the National Book Award for Poetry.

He is a distinguished professor of English at Stony Brook University, the poetry editor of The New Republic, and the president of the Board of the New York Institute of the Humanities. His book in progress, “I Just Want Them to Remember Me: Black Baseball in America” will be published by FSG in 2025. He lives in New York City and Barcelona.


The Zalaznick Reading Series is hosted by the Department of Literatures in English and the Creative Writing Program (A&S). More information is available on the University Events Calendar.