MIAMI, FL – Miami retailer Books & Books and the Miami Book Fair will present ‘An Evening with Peter Balakian’ discussing his latest book “No Sign” (University of Chicago Press, $20) on Friday, April 29, 2022 at 7:30 PM ET at Books and Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134.

About the Book:

“No Sign” is a new poetry collection from Peter Balakian, author of “Ozone Journal,” and 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.

About the Author:

PETER BALAKIAN is the author of eight books of poems including “Ozone Journal,” which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and “Ziggurat,” both published by the University of Chicago Press. His memoir “Black Dog of Fate” won the PEN/Albrand Award and was a New York Times notable book, and “The Burning Tigris” won the Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times bestseller and New York Times notable book. He is Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English at Colgate University.