Peter Balakian, Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in humanities, professor of English, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, reads selections from his newest work, New York Trilogy, on the most recent episode of 13, Colgate’s award-winning podcast, now available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
New York Trilogy, recently published by The University of Chicago Press, is an American long poem in three sections. It moves between decades of tumultuous life in New York City and explosive parts of the Middle East. The poem explores one man’s journey from the late 1960s to the 21st century, as he moves through a series of experiences centered in New York City and the surrounding New Jersey Palisades.
“These three long poems that appeared in my last three books are now put together as one long poem. I hope for readers that this will be an engaging journey, and I hope readers go with the flow and find that this kind of form will pull them in,” Balakian said. “The long poem has a rich tradition in American literature, starting with Whitman and moving to Modernists like T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and later Charles Olson, Adrienne Rich, Susan Howe, and many more. While the poem is not an autobiography, much of the persona’s experience has roots in my personal experience. But poems are works of imagination, so while personal experience may be a catalyst for something, the imagination transforms that experience into something else.”
Throughout the long poem, 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 U.S. 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 expand on the tradition of the American long poem with a lyrical narrative that weaves intimate personal moments into the vastness of shared history,” reads the book description from The University of Chicago Press.
Ruth Hoberman, of Consequence Magazine, wrote, “New York Trilogy is the culmination of [Balakian’s] life-long concern with how poetry can address. . . with complexity and beauty unique to poetry-- the twin poles of human atrocity and cultural achievement, of planetary extinction and possibility. . . . New York Trilogy challenges the reader with its disparities and discontinuities, its layering of voice and histories, and I can’t think how else a writer of Balakian’s intensity, interests and integrity could have written right now.”
Balakian is the author of nine books of poems, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Ozone Journal in 2016. 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.