Manhattanite

by Aaron Poochigian

Overview

Poetry. Aaron Poochigian's prizewinning second collection of poetry, MANHATTANITE, 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"). MANHATTANITE is, deservedly, the winner of the 2016 Able Muse Book Award.

"In MANHATTANITE, 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."--A. E. Stallings, 2016 Able Muse Book Award judge

"MANHATTANITE 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."--Tony Barnstone

"Reading Aaron Poochigian's MANHATTANITE 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."--Rachel Hadas

"Thoreau 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 Manhattanite."--R. S. Gwynn

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781927409923
Publisher:	Able Muse Press
Publication date:	11/06/2017
Pages:	90
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

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.

His translations of Aeschylus, Aratus and Apollonius of Rhodes appeared in the Norton Anthology of Greek Literature in Translation in the spring of 2009, and Johns Hopkins University Press published his edition of Aratus' astronomical poem, The Phaenomena, with his introduction and notes, in the spring of 2010. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Arion, The Dark Horse, Poetry and Smartish Pace. His books include MANHATTANITE (Able Muse Book Award for Poetry, 2017) and THE COSMIC PURR (Able Muse Press, 2012).

Table of Contents

viii Acknowledgments

ix Foreword

I. The Next Epiphany

5 Take It to the Roof

6 Him

7 Autumnal

8 Blizzard Bird

9 The Undersigned

11 Where I Am

13 Obituary

14 The Recidivist

15 The Next Epiphany

17 Song: Post Mortem

19 The Great Escape

II. The Traveler

23 The Drive

24 Turf

25 Divertimento

26 A Memory, Perhaps

27 Galapagos Now

29 Cinéma pur

30 The Child of Fortune

31 872 South Fowler

III. The Middle of It All

35 My Political Poem

37 Tragique

38 Round the World

39 Uneventful

IV. Characters

43 The Chromatist

44 The Changeling

45 The Rajah of Rout

47 Le cirque douteux

49 Blatant

50 Derelicts

56 Mr. Vigilant

57 Song: The Queen of France

V. Defiantly of Love

61 Song: Go and Do It

62 Ménage à deux

64 The Only Way

65 Least Eligible

66 The Vacca

68 Happy Birthday, Herod

69 One Too Many

70 The Eviction

72 Song: Defiantly of Love

Editorial Reviews

In Manhattanite, his second book of poems, 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.

—A. E. Stallings (from the foreword), 2016 Able Muse Book Award judge, author of Olives

Like the shuttered diner that used to serve “Americana-for-the-budget-patron,” Manhattanite 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.

—Tony Barnstone, author of Pulp Sonnets

Reading Aaron Poochigian’s Manhattanite 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.

—Rachel Hadas, author of The River of Forgetfulness

Thoreau 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” (channeling both John Donne and The Intruders) claim, “I’ll still swear/ we could be happy anywhere.” One sure location of that “anywhere” exists between the covers of Manhattanite.

—R. S. Gwynn, author of Dogwatch

From the Publisher