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Peter Balakian
Peter Balakian (born June 13, 1951) is an American poet, prose writer, and scholar. He is the author of many books including the 2016 Pulitzer prize winning book of poems Ozone Journal, the memoir Black Dog of Fate, winner of the PEN/Albrand award in 1998 and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, winner of the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and a New York Times best seller (October 2003). Both prose books were New York Times Notable Books. Since 1980 he has taught at Colgate University where he is the Donald M and Constance H Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English and Director of Creative Writing.
Peter Balakian, son of physician and sports medicine inventor Gerard Balakian and Arax Aroosian Balakian who holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Bucknell University and worked for Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceutical Company before her marriage. Balakian was born in Teaneck New Jersey and grew up there and in Tenafly, New Jersey. He attended Tenafly public schools, graduated from Englewood School For Boys (now Dwight Englewood School). He earned a B.A. from Bucknell University, and M.A. from NYU, and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University.
At Bucknell, Balakian studied with the poet and novelist Jack Wheatcroft. He taught for two years at the Dwight-Englewood School where he met his lifetime friend, the poet Bruce Smith with whom he founded the poetry journal Graham House Review (1979–96). In 1976 Balakian began his doctoral studies in the American Civilization Program at Brown University where he wrote his dissertation on the poet Theodore Roethke under the direction of Hyatt H. Waggoner and David Hirsch. His dissertation was later published as Theodore Roethke's Far Fields (LSU 1989). He joined the faculty at Colgate University in 1980 where he has taught in the English department since; he was co-founder of the Creative Writing Program and has been the director of the program since 2002. He is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English. He was also the first director of Colgate's Center for Ethics and World Societies in 1999. In 2019 he received Colgate's Jerome Balmuth Distinguished Teaching Award.
David Wojahn in Tikkun (Spring 2016) wrote that,"few American poets of the boomer generation have explored the interstices of public and personal history as deeply and urgently as has Balakian, and his significance as a poet of social consciousness is complemented by his work in other genres."
Balakian's second book of poems Sad Days of Light (1983), dealt the history, trauma and memory of a global catastrophe-the Armenian Genocide-and its impact across generations. Shirley Horner in The New York Times wrote, "Like William Carlos Williams in Paterson, Balakian displays a powerful talent in resurrecting the past, lyrically, transforming the story of his heritage into an affirmative history for all survivors."
In The Christian Science Monitor, Steven Ratiner wrote, "It is in its restrained but intimate tone, its faithfulness to the small human detail, that the poetry reaches its broadest context. As we witness the destruction of a kitchen or the anguish of one old woman, we somehow come to understand the meaning of holocaust.''
His collection Ziggurat (2010) dealt with the aftermath of 9/11 by excavating the ruins of the Sumerian past. The British poet Carol Rumens in The Guardian wrote, "The power of the poems in Ziggurat is in the range of experiences and knowledge they respond to, the linguistic energies deployed and the skill with which the narrative is layered, so that it resonates not only as historical commentary, but with pertinence to the present moment."
In an interview with the New York Times after winning the Pulitzer Prize in April, 2016, Balakian said, "poetry in particular has a great capacity to absorb history, and to make historical memory a dynamic contemporary force." To The Washington Post Balakian said, "I'm interested in pushing the form of poetry, pushing it to have more stakes, more openness to the complexity of contemporary experience."
Peter Balakian
Peter Balakian (born June 13, 1951) is an American poet, prose writer, and scholar. He is the author of many books including the 2016 Pulitzer prize winning book of poems Ozone Journal, the memoir Black Dog of Fate, winner of the PEN/Albrand award in 1998 and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, winner of the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and a New York Times best seller (October 2003). Both prose books were New York Times Notable Books. Since 1980 he has taught at Colgate University where he is the Donald M and Constance H Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English and Director of Creative Writing.
Peter Balakian, son of physician and sports medicine inventor Gerard Balakian and Arax Aroosian Balakian who holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Bucknell University and worked for Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceutical Company before her marriage. Balakian was born in Teaneck New Jersey and grew up there and in Tenafly, New Jersey. He attended Tenafly public schools, graduated from Englewood School For Boys (now Dwight Englewood School). He earned a B.A. from Bucknell University, and M.A. from NYU, and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University.
At Bucknell, Balakian studied with the poet and novelist Jack Wheatcroft. He taught for two years at the Dwight-Englewood School where he met his lifetime friend, the poet Bruce Smith with whom he founded the poetry journal Graham House Review (1979–96). In 1976 Balakian began his doctoral studies in the American Civilization Program at Brown University where he wrote his dissertation on the poet Theodore Roethke under the direction of Hyatt H. Waggoner and David Hirsch. His dissertation was later published as Theodore Roethke's Far Fields (LSU 1989). He joined the faculty at Colgate University in 1980 where he has taught in the English department since; he was co-founder of the Creative Writing Program and has been the director of the program since 2002. He is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English. He was also the first director of Colgate's Center for Ethics and World Societies in 1999. In 2019 he received Colgate's Jerome Balmuth Distinguished Teaching Award.
David Wojahn in Tikkun (Spring 2016) wrote that,"few American poets of the boomer generation have explored the interstices of public and personal history as deeply and urgently as has Balakian, and his significance as a poet of social consciousness is complemented by his work in other genres."
Balakian's second book of poems Sad Days of Light (1983), dealt the history, trauma and memory of a global catastrophe-the Armenian Genocide-and its impact across generations. Shirley Horner in The New York Times wrote, "Like William Carlos Williams in Paterson, Balakian displays a powerful talent in resurrecting the past, lyrically, transforming the story of his heritage into an affirmative history for all survivors."
In The Christian Science Monitor, Steven Ratiner wrote, "It is in its restrained but intimate tone, its faithfulness to the small human detail, that the poetry reaches its broadest context. As we witness the destruction of a kitchen or the anguish of one old woman, we somehow come to understand the meaning of holocaust.''
His collection Ziggurat (2010) dealt with the aftermath of 9/11 by excavating the ruins of the Sumerian past. The British poet Carol Rumens in The Guardian wrote, "The power of the poems in Ziggurat is in the range of experiences and knowledge they respond to, the linguistic energies deployed and the skill with which the narrative is layered, so that it resonates not only as historical commentary, but with pertinence to the present moment."
In an interview with the New York Times after winning the Pulitzer Prize in April, 2016, Balakian said, "poetry in particular has a great capacity to absorb history, and to make historical memory a dynamic contemporary force." To The Washington Post Balakian said, "I'm interested in pushing the form of poetry, pushing it to have more stakes, more openness to the complexity of contemporary experience."
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