with Peter Balakian on Aug 12, 2009
with Peter Balakian on Jan 1, 2004
with Peter Balakian on Jul 18, 1997
Peter Balakian is a poet, writer and academic, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of Humanities at Colgate University. He is a winner of 1998 PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir, the New Jersey Council of Humanities Book Award, Academy of American Poets Prize 1975 and New York Times Notable Book Prizes.
Peter Balakian is the author of five books of poems, including, most recently, June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000. His other books are Father Fisheye (1979), Sad Days of Light (1983), Reply From Wilderness Island (1988), Dyer’s Thistle (1996), and several fine limited editions. His poems have appeared widely in American magazines and journals such as The Nation, The New Republic, Antaeus, Partisan Review, Poetry, Agni, and The Kenyon Review; and in anthologies such as New Directions in Prose and Poetry, The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets, Poetry’s 75th Anniversary Issue (1987), The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry and others.
Balakian’s memoir Black Dog of Fate (1997) was winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir and a New York Times Notable Book. The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response (2003) received the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book and New York Times and national best seller.
Balakian is also the author of Theodore Roethke’s Far Fields (Louisiana State University Press, 1989). His essays on poetry, culture, and art have appeared in many publications including Ararat, Art In America, American Poetry Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The American Quarterly, American Book Review, and Poetry.
Balakian was co-founder and co-editor (with Bruce Smith) of the poetry magazine Graham House Review, which was published from 1976 to 1996. He is the translator (with Nevart Yaghlian) of Bloody News From My Friend by the Armenian poet Siamanto (Wayne State University Press, 1996).
Balakian’s prizes and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, 1999; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 2004; PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir, 1998; Raphael Lemkin Prize, 2005 (best book in English on the subject of human rights and genocide); New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Award, 1998; Daniel Varoujan Prize, New England Poetry Club, 1986; Anahid Literary Prize, Columbia University Armenian Center, 1990. He is also a recipient of the Khorenatsi medal.
Four fine limited editions of Balakian’s poems have been published by The Press of Appletree Alley (Lewisburg, PA). Translations and editions of Balakian’s books appear in Armenian, Bulgarian, Dutch, German, Greek, Russian, and Turkish. Balakian has lectured widely in the United States and abroad and has appeared often on national television and radio.
