Sarkisian Workshop Series: Poems that Ingest the Difficult World with Peter Balakian

Join us for the fourth installment of the Sarkisian Workshop Series: Poems that Ingest the Difficult World with Peter Balakian. The virtual workshop will take place on September 20, 2026, at 9:00 AM Pacific | 12:00 PM Eastern | 8:00 PM Armenia Time.

How can poems take on the difficult world—mass violence, social upheaval, the ordinary daily flow of dysfunction and cruelty—and still maintain the necessary depth and complexity the poem demands as a work of literary imagination? Our seminar will explore poets who have made powerful and aesthetically rich work as they have navigated the difficult world. We will discuss how these poems speak to us across time and place and make demands on our own poems.

Peter Balakian is the author of nine books of poems including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Ozone Journal. His memoir Black Dog of Fate won the PEN/Albrand Award, and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response was a New York Times bestseller. Balakian’s work has been translated into many languages, and he teaches at Colgate University.

A Recommended Read

Vise and Shadow: Essays on the Lyric Imagination, Poetry, Art, and Culture, by Peter Balakian

Ticket Price: $20 – General Admission; $16 – IALA Members

Purchase your tickets here.

Please reach out to info@armenianliterary.org to benefit from a member discount, or if you are interested in joining but the registration price is prohibitive.

IALA programs are shared spaces for creative work, dialogue, and learning. We invite all participants to contribute to an environment of respect, care, and thoughtful engagement. IALA reflects the multiplicity of identities in the Armenian community and beyond, and we do not tolerate any offensive behavior regarding gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, national origin, socio-economic class, educational background, personal style/appearance, citizenship and immigration status, or political affiliation. Participants whose behavior disrupts programs or harms the community may be asked to leave the space or restricted from future participation.

The Sarkisian Workshop Series 2026: Can Storytelling Save Us? is brought to you by IALA and Mizna. Funded by the Sarkisian Foundation for the Arts and Engineering, the series offers six writing workshops that include literary analysis and generative writing exercises. Designed to bring together writers from diverse backgrounds, these workshops will encourage writers to engage with the pressing issues of our time.