The Palace of Forty Pillars by Armen Davoudian
Stunning debut collection by young Armenian-Iranian poet Davoudian. The poems tell the story of a speaker estranged from the world around him as a gay adolescent, an Armenian in Iran and an immigrant in America.
'Musical and formally inventive, Davoudian is an enchanting and intriguing new voice' * Sunday Times *
In this formally radical debut, Armen Davoudian shows how rhyme enacts longing for a homeland left behind; how meter sings to a lost beloved; and how a combination of the two can map a self- or idea of the self - relinquished so that a new life, and all the happiness it deserves, can take shape -- Paul Tran, author of All the Flowers Kneeling
Home and its opposites; love and loss; youth and age; innocence and knowledge; grief and celebration: Armen Davoudian's poems are built on a series of binariesThis makes for an unusually well-organised and intellectually satisfying collection, but what gives it a special distinction, and marks the arrival of a notable new voice, is the way these opposites are brought into a continual fresh contact with one another by various kinds of formal dexterity and emotional intensity. It means that The Palace of Forty Pillars is a moving book as well as an elegant one; its central preoccupation with the theme of belonging speaks memorably to one of the most urgent questions of our time -- Andrew Motion, UK Poet Laureate 1999-2009
Armen Davoudian's The Palace of Forty Pillars heralds a new but already accomplished voice in American poetry, and indeed of an evolving America. Davoudian, born in Iran and Armenian by heritage, is a young master of the English language who brings to mind the high-culture wit of James Merrill and the affecting reticence of Elizabeth Bishop . . . There are twenty quite perfect poems here, if we count the sequence of twenty sonnets as a single poem; there are word-games, and worlds within words, and clever rhymes. Yet we feel the poet has spoken to us heart to heart, with a naturalness we trust. Our experience of this first book is more than double: we know we'll return to read it again, and again and again -- Mary Jo Salter, author of Zoom Rooms
These are songs of adolescence and love, of migration and history, brilliant and deft and heartfelt. Under the tutelary gaze of ancestral poets, Davoudian honors his queer amalgam of sources and makes of English sonnets and Persian ghazals something musical, memorable, and new. A magisterial book - reading it, I felt enchanted and transformed -- Richie Hofmann, author of A Hundred Lovers
In this formally radical debut, Armen Davoudian shows how rhyme enacts longing for a homeland left behind; how meter sings to a lost beloved; and how a combination of the two can map a self- or idea of the self - relinquished so that a new life, and all the happiness it deserves, can take shape -- Paul Tran, author of All the Flowers Kneeling
Home and its opposites; love and loss; youth and age; innocence and knowledge; grief and celebration: Armen Davoudian's poems are built on a series of binariesThis makes for an unusually well-organised and intellectually satisfying collection, but what gives it a special distinction, and marks the arrival of a notable new voice, is the way these opposites are brought into a continual fresh contact with one another by various kinds of formal dexterity and emotional intensity. It means that The Palace of Forty Pillars is a moving book as well as an elegant one; its central preoccupation with the theme of belonging speaks memorably to one of the most urgent questions of our time -- Andrew Motion, UK Poet Laureate 1999-2009
Armen Davoudian's The Palace of Forty Pillars heralds a new but already accomplished voice in American poetry, and indeed of an evolving America. Davoudian, born in Iran and Armenian by heritage, is a young master of the English language who brings to mind the high-culture wit of James Merrill and the affecting reticence of Elizabeth Bishop . . . There are twenty quite perfect poems here, if we count the sequence of twenty sonnets as a single poem; there are word-games, and worlds within words, and clever rhymes. Yet we feel the poet has spoken to us heart to heart, with a naturalness we trust. Our experience of this first book is more than double: we know we'll return to read it again, and again and again -- Mary Jo Salter, author of Zoom Rooms
These are songs of adolescence and love, of migration and history, brilliant and deft and heartfelt. Under the tutelary gaze of ancestral poets, Davoudian honors his queer amalgam of sources and makes of English sonnets and Persian ghazals something musical, memorable, and new. A magisterial book - reading it, I felt enchanted and transformed -- Richie Hofmann, author of A Hundred Lovers
Armen Davoudian has an MFA from Johns Hopkins University and is currently a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University. His poems and translations from Persian appear in Poetry magazine, the Hopkins Review, the Yale Review, and elsewhere. His chapbook, Swan Song, won the Frost Place Competition. Armen grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and lives in California.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781472158451 |
| ISBN 10 | 1472158458 |
| Title | The Palace of Forty Pillars |
| Author | Armen Davoudian |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2024-04-04 |
| Number of pages | 96 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |