The Life and Struggles of Hollywood Legend Ellen Burstyn

In 2026, she published Poetry Says It Better: Poems to Help You Wake Up, a book about the poems that sustained her through her life and career. AP reported that the book included poets such as Maya Angelou, Mary Oliver, and William Butler Yeats.

She said poetry had “fueled and sustained” her through major life moments, giving the book the feeling of a late-life self-portrait. After decades of acting, awards, trauma, and spiritual searching, she was turning back to language itself. Her next chapter showed she was still active.