Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, American Radiance,at turnsfunny, tragic, and haunting,reflects on the author’s experience immigrating as a child to the United States fromUkraine in 1991.
What does it mean to be an American? Luisa Muradyandoesn’t try to provideananswer. Instead, the poems in American Radiance look for a home in history, folklore, misery, laughter, language, and Prince’s outstretched hand. Collidingwith the grand figures of late ’80s and early ’90spop culture, Muradyan’s imagination pushes the reader forward,confronting the painful loss of identity that assimilation brings.
Trade Review"Through generous associative leaps, Muradyan turns a narrative of assimilation into a debut collection that is as playful as it is wrenching. . . . Muradyan reveals herself to be a savvy and thoroughly modern poet, observing her subjects with a dispassionate, often droll eye."—
Publishers Weekly"Luisa Muradyan's moving, wonderfully funny first volume of poetry merges an immigrant's passionate study of her adopted culture with Gen-X media obsession. . . . Muradyan is an enormously talented poet."—Annette Lapointe,
New York Journal of Books"Luisa Muradyan's
American Radiance reflects the complexities of the immigrant experience, and, through humor, pop culture allusions, and lyrical playfulness, highlights the exodus from one's homeland and what it means to assimilate in America."—
Pank Mag“Luisa Muradyan’s playful, fresh, and tender debut collection shows how a brand-new poetry can be made from many different existing sources. . . . Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Talmud, Madame Bovary, Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, and the lives of her Russian Ukrainian ancestors. . . . And we feel included too, as she constructs her innovative highways between inner and outer worlds. This is the real stuff of poetry: spontaneous, original, compassionate, and provocative—who knows, maybe the glow of her poems
does testify to the stubborn persistence of an American radiance!”—Tony Hoagland, author of
Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God“At once historical, personal, tender, enraged, and aroused, Luisa Muradyan has arrived precisely on time in American poetry. These poems are alive, ecstatic in the earthiest divine sense, lucid where humor blurs with grief, precise when weeping breaks into song. Her force is the force of love, and her voice is unforgettable.”—Kathleen Peirce, author of
Vault“In her vibrant debut, the Odessa of Luisa Muradyan’s childhood is magically wedded to an America, brash and colorful as a crazy quilt. These poems, brimming with wild, fanciful juxtapositions, with juicy pop allusions and joyous praise for the overlooked or the mundane, bring the wizardry of Chagall to mind, but the specters of exile, memory, and holocaust also emerge as dark threads woven into the writer’s alert and wondrous world vision. I salute this intrepid new poet’s up-to-the-minute friskiness, unfettered eroticism (“My breasts are like Aristotle and Plato / They never see eye to eye”), and quick-witted candor which make
American Radiance, in all its gorgeous irreverence and reach, such an exhilarating read.”—Cyrus Cassells, author of
The Gospel according to Wild Indigo “Odessa, lost city of a lost childhood. America, lost country of the now (as promised by Bruce Willis).
American Radiance is about searching, and Luisa Muradyan realizes that this is what it is to pray, to allow the search to reveal an invisible world.”—Nick Flynn, author of
My Feelings Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Part 1. Psalm for Odessa
If You Were Wondering about the Couple Who Owns the Funeral Home
Schwarzenegger in Prayer
Purple Rain
Clams
Bruce Willis, in the Light
Macho Man Randy Savage
7:40
Prodigal Son
Lilies
Maria Rasputin
The Red Forest, Рыжий лес
Crane
Resurrection
The Seduction of Masha by Rasputin
Doves
We Were Cosmonauts
Boris
Marriage
Anecdote
Message from a Peeping Tom
Ornithology
What Is True for Birds
Psalm for Odessa
Part 2. American Radiance
New Eden
Adoration
Raptor
Translating Ashes
Crane Fly
Rasputin and Alexei
Moscow 1972
Deaf Sonnet, Глухой Сонет
Firefly
Boot
Trawler
Spicer’s Promise to Lorca
Spud Love
In the Moonlight
Spilling
Breasts
Into the Blackberry
Records of Failed Weapons of World War II
Rumi in the Mouth of the Snake
Poem for the Man Playing Piano in Front of the Wall of Police
Cremation
This Was His Garden
American Radiance
