Ocean Vuong
MacArthur Fellow and New York Times-bestselling author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and Oprah's Book Club pick The Emperor of Gladness
Sarah Kay
Poet. spoken word performer, author of A Little Daylight Left
“Spoken word poetry is the art of performance poetry.”
Photo credit: Jeffrey Kay
Sarah Kay is celebrated writer, performer, educator, and TED speaker, inspiring audiences worldwide with the transformative power of spoken word poetry. As the founder of Project VOICE, she has brought poetry into hundreds of classrooms and communities, empowering voices of all ages. Kay is the author of five poetry collections, including her newest, A Little Daylight Left, sharing poems that celebrate wonder and resilience. Her performances inspire and remind audiences of poetry’s power to connect and heal.
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About Sarah Kay
Sarah Kay is a poet, performer, educator, and founder of Project VOICE—an organization that has brought spoken word poetry into hundreds of classrooms and communities around the world. She is the author of five books of poetry: No Matter the Wreckage, B, The Type, All Our Wild Wonder, and her new collection A Little Daylight Left.
Kay started performing her spoken word at age 14. She has delivered multiple Main Stage TED talks, starting in 2011, with a talk that garnered two standing ovations, over 15 million views, and remains one of the 80 Most-Viewed TED talks of all time. She has given commencement addresses at Scripps College and Grinnell, as well as convocation addresses at Cal State Long Beach and Case Western University (which also selected her poetry collection No Matter the Wreckage as its Freshman Summer Reading Book). She has also spoken at numerous companies on writing, storytelling, leadership, and creativity.
In April 2025, a decade after her acclaimed debut, Kay brought her loyal fan base a long-awaited second full-length poetry collection, A Little Daylight Left. It is a vulnerable, searching collection about facing the beautiful and difficult parts of our humanness with curiosity and compassion. While Kay has performed some of the poems included in the collection during her live shows, the majority have never been seen or heard before. Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestselling author of There’s Always This Year has praised the collection as the “book that will make you feel simultaneously alive and less alone.”
Through her work with Project VOICE, Kay has personally shared and taught poetry in over thirty countries, collaborating with educators at schools and universities worldwide. She has been invited to deliver keynotes and lead professional development workshops at industry-leading education conferences and with organizations such as the European Council of International Schools, the Association of International Schools in Africa, the National Association of Independent Schools in the U.S., the American Montessori Society, and multiple International Baccalaureate Organization Regional Conferences, among many others.
Kay has a masters degree in the Art of Teaching from Brown University, and has been a Hedgebrook Artist in Residence, a Serenbe Artist in Residence, a Kundiman Fellow, and a New Arizona Fellow at New America, as well as an upcoming Hawthornden Foundation Artist in Residence.
Contact us for more information about booking Sarah Kay for your next event.
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Speaking Topics
Facing Vulnerability Through Poetry
In this talk, Sarah Kay delves into the themes of her poetry collection A Little Daylight Left. She explores how facing life's vulnerable moments with courage and curiosity can lead to profound personal growth. Kay shares insights on embracing heartbreak, caring for loved ones, and navigating new beginnings, illustrating how poetry can be a powerful tool for celebrating our humanity and finding beauty in every experience.
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Video
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Praise for Sarah Kay
Sarah was fantastic! We’re so grateful to have had the opportunity to have her close out this year’s Summit!
— Boston CollegePraise for A Little Daylight Left
As a celebrated spoken word poet, Sarah Kay is a writer particularly attentive to how poetry sounds aloud. Reading her work on the page, you can hear how effectively she imbues conversation with the elixir of melody. In her new collection, A Little Daylight Left, I love the way her poems create the illusion of accessibility—the sense that she’s just describing something ordinary, until that gives way to the realization that she’s plotted another ambush of insight.
— The Washington Post Book ClubA Little Daylight Left is an instance of wisdom and soul rising to meet the urgency of its world. Sarah Kay’s poems are conscious that they will be read by people with minds just as complex as her own. . . . There’s no condescension, no sneering or smug back-patting to be found. There’s just Kay’s often hilarious, always shattering clarities—a big, brilliant mind tethered to a big, brilliant heart.
— Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr! -
Books by Sarah Kay
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and Availability
- 212 572-2013
- Sarah Kay travels from New York, NY
Featured Title
A Little Daylight Left
“This is a book that will make you feel simultaneously alive and less alone.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestselling author of There’s Always This Year
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