No Sign de Peter Balakian

No Sign: Phoenix Poets

Autor Peter Balakian

en Limba Engleză Hardback – 21 mar 2022

Analizăm în acest volum modul în care exercițiul memoriei poate fi transpus într-un limbaj eliptic și stratificat, capabil să unească trauma istorică de observația geologică. Remarcăm în No Sign o structură riguroasă, organizată în patru părți distincte care ghidează cititorul de la reflecții despre istorie și amărăciune către o explorare senzorială a elementelor primordiale. Secțiunea a doua, de pildă, propune o serie de meditații asupra fructelor și legumelor — de la rodie la vinete — servind drept ancoră terestră înaintea nucleului conceptual al cărții. Piesa centrală, poemul de lungă întindere care dă și titlul volumului, reia formatul dialogic explorat anterior de Peter Balakian, punând față în față un cuplu înstrăinat pe stâncile din New Jersey. Acest dialog devine un vehicul pentru o memorie caleidoscopică ce procesează totul, de la filmul 'Hiroshima Mon Amour' la criza climatică actuală. Reținem că acest volum extinde cadrul propus de Ozone Journal și Ziggurat cu date noi extrase din realitățile globale recente, precum pandemia de COVID-19, menținând în același timp legătura cu temele recurente ale autorului: genocidul armean și fragilitatea speciilor. Spre deosebire de explorările ecologice din and when the light comes it will be so fantastic de Kristin Berget, care se concentrează pe pierderea lingvistică și extincție, Peter Balakian alege o abordare mai sincopată și politică, unde istoria și știința se intersectează constant.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780226784076
ISBN-10: 022678407X
Pagini: 80
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 15 mm
Greutate: 0.31 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Seria Phoenix Poets

De ce să citești această carte

Recomandăm acest volum cititorilor care caută o poezie a mărturiei, capabilă să combine rigoarea intelectuală cu o sensibilitate estetică rară. Peter Balakian oferă o perspectivă unică asupra modului în care evenimentele globale — de la schimbările climatice la traumele istorice — se reflectă în conștiința individuală. Este o lectură esențială pentru a înțelege cum limbajul poetic poate procesa complexitatea lumii contemporane fără a-i sacrifica frumusețea senzorială.

Despre autor

Peter Balakian (născut la 13 iunie 1951) este un poet, scriitor și academician armeano-american, deținând titlul de profesor de științe umaniste la Universitatea Colgate. Recunoscut la nivel internațional pentru vocea sa distinctivă, a câștigat Premiul Pulitzer pentru poezie în 2016. Opera sa este profund marcată de istoria familiei sale și de trauma genocidului armean, teme explorate pe larg și în memoriile sale, Black Dog of Fate. Prin volumele publicate în seria Phoenix Poets, Balakian s-a impus ca un observator fin al intersecției dintre viața privată și marile curente politice și culturale ale secolului XX și XXI.

Descriere scurtă

New poetry collection from Peter Balakian, author of Ozone Journal, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

In these poems, Peter Balakian wrestles with national and global cultural and political realities, including challenges for the human species amid planetary transmutation and the impact of mass violence on the self and culture. At the collection’s heart is “No Sign,” another in Balakian’s series of long-form poems, following “A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy” and “Ozone Journal,” which appeared in his previous two collections. In this dialogical multi-sectioned poem, an estranged couple encounters each other, after years, on the cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades. The dialogue that ensues reveals the evolution of a kaleidoscopic memory spanning decades, reflecting on the geological history of Earth and the climate crisis, the film Hiroshima Mon Amour, the Vietnam War, a visionary encounter with the George Washington Bridge, and the enduring power of love..

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, Balakian’s layered, elliptical language, wired phrases, and shifting tempos engage both life’s harshness and beauty and define his inventive and distinctive style.

Notă biografică

Peter Balakian is the author of eight books of poems including Ozone Journal, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and Ziggurat, both published by the University of Chicago Press. His memoir Black Dog of Fate won the PEN/Albrand Award and was a New York Times notable book, and The Burning Tigris won the Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times bestseller and New York Times notable book. He is Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English at Colgate University.

Cuprins

Acknowledgments ix

ONE
History, Bitterness
Tung Lai Shun
Ode to the Douduk
Waiting for a Number
Summer Ode
Yellow Lilies
Outside Arshile Gorky’s Studio
Revenant Love
Watching the Tulips Die
Purple Irises
Shadow Grid
Grasses of Unknowing
How Much I Love You

TWO
Eggplant
Quince
Bulgur
Pomegranate
Matza
Fig
Walnut
Apricot
Grape Leaves
Tomatoes
Okra
Zucchini

THREE
No Sign

FOUR
Stalled in Traffic
Head of Anahit/British Museum
Coming to Istanbul
Leaving the Big City
Walking the Ruined City
Notes

Recenzii

"Armenians sometimes wonder if their voice is audible in the world, especially during times of crisis. In the realm of literature, and poetry in particular, there is no doubt that it is, with Pulitzer Prize winning poets like Peter Balakian. Balakian’s work places the Armenian experience on a level of universal significance, not leaving it isolated in the realm of ethnic or folk life, nor buried dead in history. At the age of seventy, he continues to produce prolifically. His newest volume of poetry, No Sign, just published, is another masterful collection weaving together all sorts of elements of contemporary life, with an Armenian perspective and memory prominent."

"As a coherent volume, the poems index Balakian’s archetypal themes of dislocation, suffering, and loss. As a varied collection, they reflect a decade of global discord and upheaval. Together, the poems speak to each other in strange and unexpected ways."

"This is a collection concerned with the ghosts of history: personal, family, political, and literary. Balakian is on the lookout for ‘the ghost map’— past lives overlaid on his own, like transparencies that give illumination. This intuitive, almost situationist approach, is far more interesting than standard historiography; for Balakian (note the near ‘Blake’ in there), it is the intoxication of the poem’s journey that counts. . . . Balakian does what he’s done all through this incredible book and ever alert to poetry’s ability to make time collapse, he writes the luminous present: ‘Here the light is coming/over the border from Armenia.’"

"Pulitzer-winning poet Balakian returns with a kinetic eighth book that transports the reader across borders and through memory. . . . Balakian pays witness to the cyclicality of personal and political violence, the 'crosswinds' of the past and present. . . . the poems span centuries and nations, weaving references to America, Armenia, Hiroshima, and Syria alongside writers Baldwin, Mandelstam, Hegel, and Plath. Even simple images––okra, tomato, fig––resonate with multiple histories. 'Leonardo used you to make ink,' he writes in 'Walnut.' These poems ask the question, 'Can holding on to this image/ help me make sense of time?' While the answer may be no, Balakian’s attempt is resplendent."

"Balakian is a good wine that needs no bush. Sensitively attuned to histories of disaffection, disruption, and derangement, he is a master of collage, resulting in poetry of expansive, long sequences. A poetry of montage, fluctuating rhythm, and inner tension where motion is skilfully embedded with emotion that never becomes transgressively extreme. Balakian’s refined intelligence keeps control throughout as he reveals his larger historical sense. . . . 'No Sign' should be taken as the final part of a trilogy, begun with 'A- Train / Ziggurat / Elegy' and continued with 'Ozone Journal' from Ziggurat and Ozone Journal, respectively. A trilogy of exceptional technical expertise, sincerity, moral clarity, and power."

"No Sign masterfully juxtaposes the magnificence of human achievement, as exemplified in music and architecture, with the inescapable fact of human malfeasance that results in war, persecution and estrangement."

"A poetry of montage, fluctuating rhythm, and inner tension where motion is skillfully embedded with emotion that never becomes transgressively extreme. Balakian’s refined intelligence keeps control throughout as he reveals his larger historical sense."

“Balakian understands the bewildered music of our times, and No Sign, more than any other contemporary book of poetry, teaches us about the properties of time; we are inside the speech that is addressing time and opposing it, witnessing it, and walking two steps ahead. This 'time-sense' is explored with depth in the brilliant title poem. Balakian is able to praise the world though he knows its ‘bitter history.’ And praise he does! The lyricism here is of utter beauty. No Sign is a splendid, necessary book."

“Balakian has been writing intellectually challenging poems of ‘bright unbearable reality’ that are part of an ongoing conversation in American poetry for some time. They have the horizontal continuum of history, like Walcott and Heaney, but they also have verticality which arrests time and connects with the demonic and divine. He masterfully does the thing nobody else does which is to derange history into poetry, to make poetry painting, to make painting culture, to make culture living, and with a historical depth that finds the right experience in language.”

“In No Sign, Balakian embraces the claims of immediacy as well as the encompassing historical perspective. His images and sharp syncopations locate the pulse of our times and give it a prophetic reverberation. Here is a voice of witness which also makes room for an irrepressible sensory imagination.”