Poetry Says It Better: Poems to Help You Wake Up

"A generous, heartfelt gift." -- Kirkus (STARRED review)

The legendary Academy Award-winning actress reflects on her love affair with poetry and makes us all believers.

We all want inspiration. We want to feel connected to something universal. And we want to be able to share that wonder with friends and loved ones.

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.

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 Ellen 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.

Ellen Burstyn won a Tony Award for her role in Same Time, Next Year (1974), is a six-time Oscar nominee, winning the Best Actress Award for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), and a six-time Emmy nominee, with one win for her guest role on Law & Order: SVU (2008-09). She has appeared on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional theatre for more than five decades. Ellen is the co-president of the famed Actors Studio. In 2006, her memoir, Lessons in Becoming Myself, became a national bestseller. She also lectures around the country on a wide variety of topics.