Who: Michael Ondaatje, Jordan Pavlin
What: Poetry reading and discussion
Where: Rizzoli Bookstore, 1133 Broadway at West Twenty-Sixth St.
When: Thursday, April 4, free with advance RSVP, 6:00
Why: “When you are surrounded with ornaments / of the old world, you need to hear one living vein,” Michael Ondaatje writes in “A Night Radio Station in Koprivshtitsa,” from his new poetry book, A Year of Last Things (Knopf, March 19, $28). He later adds, “Most stories remain unresolved, / undiscovered, like the breaking of a rule.” On April 4 at 6:00, the eighty-year-old Sri Lankan-born Canadian author, who has penned such novels as The English Patient, Anil’s Ghost, and Warlight, will be at Rizzoli to launch A Year of Last Things; he will read from the work, which contains such poems as “Lock,” “Definition,” “Lost,” “A Disappearance,” and “Stillness,” and sit down for a conversation with Knopf editor-in-chief Jordan Pavlin. Admission to the event, which is presented by the Authors Guild Foundation with support from the Academy of American Poets, is free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. Presigned books will be available at the end.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]