2019 was a transformative and tumultuous year for Ariana Reines. After seven years of dedicated work, her ambitious writing project culminated in the publication of A Sand Book , a 400-page poetry epic, which concludes in a theophany with the sun. Like an enraged Demeter, or a Persephone in denial, Reines had given up her Queens apartment to save her mom from the streets, dragging her in-progress manuscript around the world in a glorified homelessness the contemporary artworld might more politely call "a busy career." She spoke to strangers and to TV audiences, unintentionally accumulated a colorful array of lovers, enrolled at Harvard Divinity School, and generally lived "as variously as possible" — to quote Frank O'Hara — in the many ways she is known for: connecting cosmic and private dimensions in the most public and touching way, teaching, analyzing ancient texts, reading stars, appearing on TV and recreating in real time what a poet can be.

In her poetry and public performances, Reines strives to communicate with intelligence and spontaneity, channeling her words directly from the heart. Or in her own words: “Our hearts were the bombs whose threat never withdrew.” For 2019: an endurance , Ariana Reines will delve into the profound experiences that shaped her transformative 2019 and explore where those currents have carried her since. The event promises to be a free-flowing improvisation, combining the insights of deep meditation with a direct encounter with the audience. ARIANA REINES is a poet, playwright, and performing artist from Salem, Massachusetts and based in New York. Her books include The Rose (forthcoming, 2025), Wave of Blood , A Sand Book —winner of the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Award and longlisted for the National Book Award— Mercury , Coeur de Lion , and The Cow , which won the Alberta Prize from Fence in 2006. Her Obie-winning play Telephone was commissioned by the Foundry Theatre with a sold-out run at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 2009. Reines has created performances for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Swiss Institute, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, Le Mouvement Biel/Bienne, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Performance Space New York. She has taught poetry at UC Berkeley (Holloway Poet), Columbia, NYU, and Scripps College (Mary Routt Chair), been a visiting critic at Yale School of Art, and for community organizations including the Poetry Project and Poets House. Her poetry and prose have been published in The New Yorker , Poetry , Artforum , Frieze , Harper’s , and many others. In 2020, while a Divinity student at Harvard, Reines created Invisible College, an online space devoted to the study of poetry, sacred texts, and the arts.