Cloth $28.00 ISBN: 9780226035642 Published September 2010
Paper $15.00 ISBN: 9780226035666 Published December 2011
E-book $7.00 to $15.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226035659 Published September 2010

Ziggurat

Peter Balakian

Peter Balakian

88 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2010
Cloth $28.00 ISBN: 9780226035642 Published September 2010
Paper $15.00 ISBN: 9780226035666 Published December 2011
E-book $7.00 to $15.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226035659 Published September 2010

In his first book of poems since his highly acclaimed June-tree, Peter Balakian continues to define himself as one of the most distinctive voices of his generation. Exploring history, self, and imagination, as well as his ongoing concerns with catastrophe and trauma, many of Balakian’s new poems wrestle with the aftermath and reverberations of 9/11.
            Whether reliving the building of the World Trade Towers in the inventive forty-three-section poem that anchors the book, walking the ruins of the Bosnian National Library in Sarajevo, meditating on Andy Warhol’s silk screens, or considering the confluence of music, language, and memory, Balakian continues his meditations on history, as well as on the harshness and beauty of contemporary life, that his readers have enjoyed over the years. In sensual, layered, and sometimes elliptical language, Balakian in Ziggurat explores absence, war, love, and art in a new age of American uncertainty.

Contents

Acknowledgments

 

One

 

Going to Zero

Warhol / Madison Ave. / 9-11

World Trade Center / Mail Runner / ’71

Warhol / Blue Jackie

World Trade Center / Mail Runner / ’73

Warhol / Electric Chair / ’63

World Trade Center / Black Holes / ’74

Warhol / Race Riot / ’63

Elevator, Midtown, ’74

 

Two

 

A-Train / Ziggurat / Elegy

 

Three

 

Three Decades

Reading Dickinson / Summer ’68

Grant’s Tomb

Self-Portrait with Bird

The Alley

Early Spring

Blue Room

9 /11, Emily Dickinson

Sarajevo

 

Notes

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
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