- The cover of ‘Ziggurat’
SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Peter Balakian will kick off the Writers Series at the Downtown Syracuse YMCA on Oct. 1 at 7 p.m., reading from his new book of poems Ziggurat just published by the University of Chicago Press.
A poem from Ziggurat was featured on the NewsHour’s Art Beat poem of the week on Sept. 7, and Balakian was interviewed about his new book by NPR’s Scott Simon for Weekend Edition on Sept. 11.
In his first book of poems since his highly praised June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000, 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 his new poems wrestle with the aftermath of September 11.
About Ziggurat, Carolyn Forche has written: “With characteristic originality, Balakian finds his echoing motif in the construction of the first great skyscraper, the Ziggurat at Ur, and this gives his epic poem, ‘A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy,’ a historical depth I have found nowhere else in American poetry in recent years. What Balakian has achieved here is a brilliant assimilation of the historical, philosophical, political, and psychological.”
Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in Humanities and professor of English at Colgate University. He is the author of five books of poems, including June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000, and three prose works, including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, a New York Times bestseller, and Black Dog of Fate, winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir. His work has been translated into a dozen languages.
All events are free and open to the public, and held in the Downtown Writer’s Center at the Downtown YMCA at 340 Montgomery St. in Syracuse. For more information, call the DWC at (474) 6851 x328 or email pmemmer@syracuseymca.org.
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