Ozone Journal Peter Balakian Ozone Journal the university of chicago press Chicago & London Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities and professor of English at Colgate University. He is the author of seven books of poems, most recently of the critically acclaimed Zig- gurat, also published by the University of Chicago Press. His memoir Black Dog of Fate won the PEN/Albrand Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book, and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response was a New York Times best seller and a New York Times Notable Book. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2015 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2015. Printed in the United States of America 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-20703-2 (paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-20717-9 (e-book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226207179.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Balakian, Peter, 1951– author. Ozone journal / Peter Balakian. pages ; cm. — (Phoenix poets) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-226-20703-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-20717-9 (e-book) I. Title. II. Series: Phoenix poets. PS3552.A443O97 2015 811'.54—dc23 2014016859 ∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). for askold melnyczuk Contents Acknowledgments ix one Name and Place 3 Pueblo 1, New Mexico 5 Pueblo 2, New Mexico 9 Pueblo, Christmas Dance 12 Joe Louis’s Fist 14 Hart Crane in LA, 1927 18 Providence/Teheran, ’79 20 Warhol/Mao, ’72 22 Baseball Days, ’61 25 two Ozone Journal 29 three Here and Now 61 Slum Drummers, Nairobi 63 Leaving Aleppo 68 Near the Border 69 Finches 75 Silk Road 76 Home 78 Notes 81 Acknowledgments My thanks to the editors of the magazines in which these poems, sometimes with different titles, first appeared: Agni: “Near the Border,” “Slum Drummers” Boston Review: “Hart Crane in LA, 1927” Carolina Quarterly: section 33 of “Ozone Journal” (as “Waking/West End Ave./1983”) Colorado Review: “Pueblo, Christmas Dance” Consequence: “Name and Place” Harvard Review: “Providence/Teheran ’79” Massachusetts Review: “Silk Road” New Letters: “Home” Ploughshares: “Pueblo 1, New Mexico” Saveur: section 12 of “Ozone Journal” (as “Breakfast in Aleppo”) Southwest Review: “Pueblo 2, New Mexico” Tikkun: “Joe Louis’s Fist” Virginia Quarterly Review: section 45 of “Ozone Journal” (as “Kinda Blue”) “Hart Crane in LA, 1927” also appeared on Poetry Daily (poems.com). “Warhol/Mao, ’72” appeared in Poems and Their Making: A Conversation, ed. Philip Brady (Lanham, MD: Bucknell University Press, 2015). “Here and Now” was published in a broadside limited edition of 100 by Andrew Rippeon at the Press at Nine-Mile Swamp, Clinton, NY. “Silk Road” was reprinted in Poetry Daily, April 7, 2013. With thanks to JB, SB, DLF, DSL, ML, AM, ALM, RP, WR, BS, TS, and to Yaddo, Robert Garland, and Mary Beth Kelly for sanctuaries to write. ix