{"product_id":"manhattanite-able-muse-book-award-for-poetry-9781927409923","title":"Manhattanite (Able Muse Book Award for Poetry)","description":"\u003cp\u003eAaron Poochigian's prizewinning second collection of poetry, \u003cem\u003eManhattanite, \u003c\/em\u003e is by turns frenzied and focused. It examines New York's juxtaposed symbols of towering achievement and monumental desolation, and then traverses the country to California's Central Valley, where the poet reclaims his grandparents' home. Poochigian consistently entertains, whether his theme is lamentation or celebration--a grizzled urban pigeon (scavenging for \"the sort of faith\/ that holds for here and now and vibes like song\") or an Ohio wind turbine (an \"ungatherable\/ iron flower\" seen \"juggling . . . \/ three arms' worth\/ of gale-force wind\"). \u003cem\u003eManhattanite\u003c\/em\u003e is, deservedly, the winner of the 2016 Able Muse Book Award.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE FOR \u003cem\u003eMANHATTANITE: \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eManhattanite, \u003c\/em\u003e Aaron Poochigian takes on the role of American flâneur for the twenty-first century, drifting through the frenetic metropolis at a dreamer's planetary pace. This collection is a celebration of exuberant melancholy, or melancholy exuberance, slick lyric cum urbane pastoral.\u003cbr\u003e --A. E. Stallings (from the foreword), 2016 Able Muse Book Award judge\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eManhattanite\u003c\/em\u003e gives us the Manhattan of speed chess players in the park, tipsy tipplers tipping off the rooftops, the night sky bright with city light, tenants, tenements and supers. Aaron Poochigian is the poet in New York seeking a holy aura in the song of gunshots and spiral sirens, picking like a grizzled pigeon through stray newspapers, bottles, bags, and candy wrappers for a scrap of religion. Each poem is a tower growing out of our human filth and scraping the sky with sky-lines, and together they build a city of words. Put New York in your pocket. It's inside this book.\u003cbr\u003e --Tony Barnstone\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReading Aaron Poochigian's \u003cem\u003eManhattanite\u003c\/em\u003e is a dynamic, kinetic experience. These poems travel at a fast clip, pulling you along through cityscapes, wastelands, and other vistas. Some of the poems tunnel downward, plumbing depths of mood and memory. Whichever way they move, Poochigian's poems perform with such panache and brio that it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. I'd say do both--and keep reading. But be warned: this isn't a feel-good book. It's a fearless book.\u003cbr\u003e --Rachel Hadas\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThoreau once boasted that he had traveled widely in Concord; Aaron Poochigian's title indicates that he has traveled widely elsewhere--in the one borough worth experiencing, through western deserts, aboard \"an ultra-modern train\/ lisping through French or German woods,\" and in a Paris of naked bulbs and seedy cabarets. In all of these settings, he deftly choreographs his cast of nameless characters. The concluding lines of \"Song: Go and Do It\" claim, \"I'll still swear\/ we could be happy anywhere.\" One sure location of that \"anywhere\" exists between the covers of \u003cem\u003eManhattanite\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e --R. S. Gwynn\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABOUT THE AUTHOR: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAaron Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His books of translation, both from Penguin Classics, are Sappho, Stung With Love (2009), and Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts (2014). He was awarded a 2010-2011 grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. His first book of original poetry, \u003cem\u003eThe Cosmic Purr\u003c\/em\u003e (Able Muse Press) was published in 2012, and several of the poems in it collectively won the New England Poetry Club's Daniel Varoujan Prize. His work has appeared in \u003cem\u003eThe Guardian, Poems Out Loud, \u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ePoetry\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003eManhattanite\u003c\/em\u003e is the winner of the 2016 Able Muse Book Award.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePoochigian, Aaron:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Aaron Poochigian was born in 1973. He attended Moorhead State University from 1991 to 1996 where he studied under the poets Tim Murphy, Dave Mason and Alan Sullivan. He entered graduate school for Classics in 1997 at the University of Minnesota. After traveling and doing research in Greece on fellowship from 2003 to 2004, he earned a Ph.D. in Classics in 2006, and now lives and writes in New York City. His translations, with introduction and notes, of Sappho's poems and fragments were published by Penguin Classics in 2009.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis translations of Aeschylus, Aratus and Apollonius of Rhodes appeared in the \u003cem\u003eNorton Anthology of Greek Literature in Translation\u003c\/em\u003e in the spring of 2009, and Johns Hopkins University Press published his edition of Aratus' astronomical poem, \u003cem\u003eThe Phaenomena\u003c\/em\u003e, with his introduction and notes, in the spring of 2010. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including \u003cem\u003eArion\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Dark Horse\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ePoetry\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSmartish Pace\u003c\/em\u003e. His books include MANHATTANITE (Able Muse Book Award for Poetry, 2017) and THE COSMIC PURR (Able Muse Press, 2012).","brand":"Able Muse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50506690396434,"sku":"9781927409923","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_de26b35f-6b1c-404c-afe5-11d91f3d6c20.jpg?v=1730853256","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/manhattanite-able-muse-book-award-for-poetry-9781927409923","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}