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April 29, 2022 @ 7:30 pm
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In-Person | Poetry Month Closing Celebration with Peter Balakian, Jonathan Plutzik and Tom Virgin
Books & Books, Miami Book Fair and The Betsy Hotel present…
Poetry Month Closing Celebration with…
Poetry Reading from
Peter Balakian
No Sign
(University of Chicago Press, $20)
featuring introduction by
Jonathan Plutzik
and gallery celebration for
Tom Virgin
Friday, April 29, 7:30 PM ET
RSVP
About the Book:
New poetry collection from Peter Balakian, author of Ozone Journal, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
In these poems, Peter Balakian wrestles with national and global cultural and political realities, including challenges for the human species amid planetary transmutation and the impact of mass violence on the self and culture. At the collection’s heart is “No Sign,” another in Balakian’s series of long-form poems, following “A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy” and “Ozone Journal,” which appeared in his previous two collections. In this dialogical multi-sectioned poem, an estranged couple encounters each other, after years, on the cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades. The dialogue that ensues reveals the evolution of a kaleidoscopic memory spanning decades, reflecting on the geological history of Earth and the climate crisis, the film Hiroshima Mon Amour, the Vietnam War, a visionary encounter with the George Washington Bridge, and the enduring power of love..
Whether meditating on the sensuality of fruits and vegetables, the COVID-19 pandemic, the trauma and memory of the Armenian genocide, James Baldwin in France, or Arshile Gorky in New York City, Balakian’s layered, elliptical language, wired phrases, and shifting tempos engage both life’s harshness and beauty and define his inventive and distinctive style.
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About the Exhibition:
When I received a seventh invitation to the Anderson Center at Tower View in Red Wing, Minnesota it was once again an opportunity to work with acknowledged master letterpress printers in Red Wing and the Twin Cities. The Midwest is a place that never lost the traditions of letterpress printing. I had a small dilemma, however. In all the previous residencies, I had filled the walls of my studio with new work upon my arrival. The time in school and printing for the gallery, had kept my production to a minimum. Mid-May I asked fourteen friends and collaborators (all writers) to give me 100 characters each to print on broadsheets. The resulting prose, poems, prayers, and koans are the Miami 100’s. When I put them up in my studio at the Anderson Center, they were a huge hit. Writers have been the river that has carried me through my life so far. I am grateful.
Proprietor, Extra Virgin Press & Bookworm