Ozone journal

"A sequel of sorts to "Ziggurat," published in the Phoenix Poets series in 2010, the title poem from "Ozone Journal" recounts the memory of the speaker's excavating the bones of Armenian genocide victims in the Syrian desert with a TV journalist crew in 2009. The speaker "dreams back," as it were, t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Balakian, Peter, 1951- (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2015]
Series:Phoenix poets.
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Summary:"A sequel of sorts to "Ziggurat," published in the Phoenix Poets series in 2010, the title poem from "Ozone Journal" recounts the memory of the speaker's excavating the bones of Armenian genocide victims in the Syrian desert with a TV journalist crew in 2009. The speaker "dreams back," as it were, to the 1980s, when, as a young man in his thirties and caring for a young daughter after a recent divorce, he is having to juggle both personal and cultural/historical complexities living as a single parent in Manhattan. The poems create a montage that has the feel of history as lived experience, with the speaker struggling with the nature of memory as the poems move constantly back and forth to the Syrian desert, the dissolution of his marriage, visits and conversations with a cousin dying of AIDS, and encounters with famous jazz producers at Columbia Records to discuss music. In this book, Peter Balakian aims at the bigger picture of humanity's history of atrocity and trauma, but through short vignettes grounded in everyday situations, and in particular times and places"--Publisher's info.
Physical Description:ix, 82 pages ; 23 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN:9780226207032
022620703X
Author Notes:Peter Balakian was born in Teaneck, New Jersey on June 13, 1951. He received a B.A. from Bucknell University, a M.A. from New York University, and a Ph.D. in American civilization from Brown University. He has been an English professor at Colgate University since 1980. His collections of poetry including Father Fisheye, Sad Days of Light, Reply from Wilderness Island, Dyer's Thistle, June-Tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000, Ziggurat, and Ozone Journal, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. He has also written works of nonfiction including Theodore Roethke's Far Fields and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. His memoir, Black Dog of Fate, won the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir.

(Bowker Author Biography)