Rowan Ricardo Phillips, a Presidential Professor and Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at Stony Brook University, was featured in the university’s Provost Spotlight Talk on September 25. The event, titled “Why Poetry?”, was led by Stony Brook Provost Carl Lejuez and explored the significance and enduring power of poetry.
Lejuez introduced Phillips by highlighting his impact as both a writer and educator. “Rowan is truly a beloved professor and his work teaches us that poetry has an incredible power to help us see and understand things differently, to harness the wildly different forces of emotion and language to create something that is uniquely capable of revealing profound truths,” said Lejuez. “He’s a Stony Brook scholar who creates beauty unlike anyone else.”
Phillips, whose upcoming nonfiction book “I Just Want Them to Remember Me: Black Baseball in America” will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, began his talk by reflecting on the complexity of questioning poetry’s purpose. “When you title a talk ‘Why Poetry?’ you’re already in trouble,” he said. “The phrase doesn’t stand still and won’t behave. Spoken one way, it’s a skeptic’s question. Said another way, it’s a believer’s question. Why poetry? What strange power is it that we keep turning to in moments of wonder or despair whispered late at night? The question is old because the uncertainty is old, and every poet somewhere along the way has muttered it mid-draft, staring at the page.”
Addressing how poetry endures in contemporary society, Phillips remarked: “In a world drowning in words, poetry survives by asking for less. Not thousands of words, just a few. Not a torrent, but a drop distilled. One drop strong enough to change the bloodstream. It holds open a space where words can once again be trusted, where they can carry truth, where they can make human lives intelligible to one another in fractured times. It steadies us by showing that language can still bear meaning, that a small flame can last even in a gale.”
He also spoke about poetry’s ability to foster connection: “To encounter a poem is to hear another voice, sometimes centuries old, sometimes close at hand, saying, ‘I felt this, I saw this, I endured this.’ And in that instant, the private becomes shareable. We realize we are not alone, and suddenly a bridge is built, made of nothing but air and syllables, yet somehow sturdier.”
During an informal discussion after his lecture with Lejuez, Phillips shared personal stories about how literature shaped him from an early age through his mother’s recitations of Shakespeare. “I grew up with my mother always reciting Shakespeare,” he said. “But everything had a context. She had passages of Shakespeare for everything, good or bad. I was constantly amazed, not just by the beauty but by her capacity for recall… Most people get Shakespeare in a book; I was getting it recited when I was 10.”
When asked about his favorite poem among those he has written or read over time, Phillips responded: “I have a completely non-hierarchical mind; they’re like my kids,” he said. “They all have their function… My favorite poem is the next one that I’m going to write.”
Phillips also reflected on what he learns from teaching students at Stony Brook University: “I thought of my students when I titled this talk Why poetry? I love my students because they ask the essential questions… I always make a point of… remembering what that’s like and also what these initial questions are.” He added that student perspectives help him discover new approaches: “They teach me different angles and points of entry into art which are incredibly necessary parts of being… And with poetry, the path is foggy and it’s winding but it’s where you want to be.”
Aminah Augustin-Muhammad ’25 attended the event as one of Phillips’ students and commented on its impact: “I’ve been looking forward to the event for weeks,” she said. “I love poetry… Everyone here got a glimpse of how he teaches… He didn’t just answer ‘Why poetry?’ Instead he dissected the question itself… It didn’t feel like a lecture; it felt like he was talking to us each individually.”
Concluding his remarks on why poetry matters today Phillips stated: “Because it creates recognition because it takes what is most fragile and fleeting and makes it durable… Poetry is the candle carried into the room… It does not cure the dark; it does not rebuild what is broken but it allows us to see one another’s faces—and from that recognition face-to-face everything else can begin.”
