Title
Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in Humanities; Professor of English; Director of Creative Writing (1980); Director of The Center for Ethics and World Societies (1998-99)
Degree
BA Bucknell University 1973; PhD Brown University 1980
Specialties
American poetry, Creative Writing: poetry, genocide studies, Armenian genocide
Interests
American poetry, contemporary poetry and creative non-fiction, modern poetry in translation, genocide studies, trauma studies, post WWI American Art
Selected Publications
Ziggurat (poems, University of Chicago Press, 2010); Armenian Golgotha, a memoir of the Armenian Genocide by Grigoris Balakian, translator with Aris Sevag, (Knopf, 2009); The Burning Tigris; The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (HarperCollins, 2003), June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000 (HarperCollins, 2001), Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir (Basic Books, 1997; 10th anniversary edition, 2009), Dyer's Thistle (poems, Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press, 1996), Bloody News From My Friend by Siamanto (translation, Wayne State Univ. Press, 1996), Theodore Roethke's Far Fields (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1989), Reply From Wilderness Island (poems, Sheep Meadow Press, 1988), Sad Days of Light (poems, Sheep Meadow Press, 1983), Father Fisheye (poems, Sheep Meadow Press, 1979); editor, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (Wayne State Univ. Press, 2003); poetry and essays in The Nation, Art in America, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Partisan Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry, The New York Times Magazine, etc.; Editor with Bruce Smith, Graham House Review, a journal of contemporary poetry, 1976-1996.
Distinctions
Emily Clark Balch Prize for poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, 2007; Movses Horenatsi Medal, Republic of Armenia, 2007; Raphael Lemkin Prize, 2005 (The Burning Tigris); National Endowment for the Arts fellowship 2004-05; Guggenheim fellowship 1999-2000; PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir, 1998 (Black Dog of Fate); New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Prize, 1998 (Black Dog of Fate); Anahit Literary Prize, Columbia University, 1990; New York Times and Los Angeles Times notable books of 1997 (Black Dog of Fate); New York Times and Publishers Weekly notable books of 2003 (The Burning Tigris); Washington Post Notable Books of 2009 (Armenian Golgotha)