John Freeman, Victoria Chang, Peter Balakian, and Victoria Redel on “Redemption, Refuge, and Release”

Join John Freeman, Victoria Chang, Peter Balakian, and Jennifer Redel for a panel discussion of “Redemption, Refuge, and Release,” at the Miami Book Fair on Saturday November 19th at 12 PM ET. 

From the Organizers:
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, Peter Balakian‘s layered, elliptical language, wired phrases, and shifting tempos in No Sign engage both life’s harshness and beauty and define his inventive and distinctive style. In The Trees Witness Everything, Victoria Chang turns to compact Japanese syllabic forms called “wakas,” powerfully innovating on tradition while continuing her pursuit of one of life’s hardest questions: how to let go. What can the trees teach us about inhabiting space together? John Freeman studies the devastating failings of humanity and the redemptive possibilities of love in Wind, Trees. And drawing from a long family history of flight and refuge to rewrite Eden, the poems in Victoria Redel‘s Paradise interweave religion and myth, personal lore and nation-building, borders actual and imagined, asking: What if what we fell from was never, actually, grace?