New York Trilogy - by Peter Balakian (Paperback)

About the Book

"New York Trilogy is comprised of three, long, multi-sequence poems ("A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy," "Ozone Journal," and "No Sign") that first appeared in Peter Balakian's last three books with this Press: Ziggurat (2010), Ozone Journal (2015, winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and No Sign (2022). As a long poem, the trilogy explores a number of cataclysmic events of our time, including the Armenian Genocide, Hiroshima and the Vietnam War, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, conflicts in the Middle East, and the geo-climate crisis. The poems follow the journey of a persona that evolves from a series of experiences in New York in the 1970s and 80s and into the first decade of the new century. It registers both personal and historical perspectives, creating layers of memory in the form of a dialogue between past and present, self and other, exploring political violence, art and music, love, divorce, and personal loss. As a book-length work of poetry, New York Trilogy joins the tradition of American long poems that includes works such as Hart Crane's The Bridge, William Carlos Williams's Paterson, and Charles Olson's Maximus Poems. Its appearance will be a publishing event"--

Book Synopsis

An American long poem in three sections by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Peter Balakian that moves between decades of tumultuous life in New York City and explosive parts of the Middle East.

In an inventive, elliptical language, New York Trilogy explores one man's journey from the late 1960s to the twenty-first century, as he moves through a series of experiences centered in New York City and the surrounding New Jersey Palisades. Throughout this long poem in three parts, the protagonist's life is impacted by historical events including the Armenian Genocide, the bombing of Hiroshima, the Vietnam War, the AIDS epidemic, the attacks of September 11th, the US war in Iraq, and the climate crisis.

Comprised of three multi-sequence poems originally included in Peter Balakian's collections No Sign, Ozone Journal, and Ziggurat, the sections of New York Trilogy come together to form a poetry that embraces interior and aesthetic experiences, celebrates human intimacy, and bears witness to history. The historical power and psychological depth of Balakian's work expands on the tradition of the American long poem with a lyrical narrative that weaves intimate personal moments into the vastness of shared history.

Review Quotes

"Rippling with large energy, ambitious in its reach, and gratifying in its etched-in personal glimpses, New York Trilogy shuttles us through history, from a dig in Mesopotamia to the catastrophes of our time. Ingesting calamity, it breaks the language into fresh syncopations. So idioms change and advance. The Trilogy is a feat of contemporary witness, its multiple refractions brought to account in the self of the poet. This is how we integrate fragmentation in our time, and how, after hard passage, we look to transcend."
--Sven Birkerts, author of "The Miró Worm and the Mysteries of Writing"

About the Author

Peter Balakian is the author of nine books of poems including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ozone Journal. His memoir Black Dog of Fate won the PEN/Albrand Award, and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response was a New York Times bestseller. Balakian's work has been translated into many languages, and he teaches at Colgate University.