University Of North Texas Press
This poetry collection is the record of an American's return home after a decade abroad, an exile imposed solely because he loved another man.
In a virtuoso display of lyric and formal inventiveness, Bellin-Oka's poems meditate on the myriad losses engendered by diaspora: of home, family and sexual identity, and spiritual certainty.
Steve Bellin-Oka's poems hold in balance an intensified language and a passionate voice that bring together the struggles of the inner life with stark realities.
This is a book of arresting authenticity.
--Peter Balakian, Pulitzer-Prize winner and judge From Self-Portrait as the Chosen OneLong before I was what I am now, shortof breath, bald, just returned with arthritic kneesfrom exile in another country's muck and redvolcanic soil, too near-sighted to discernthe High Plains tumbleweed from the burningbush of myth, scorched now and silent, long before this, I was the first son my mother borethat lived.
About the Author STEVE BELLIN-OKA is the author of a chapbook, Dead Letter Office at North Atlantic Station and is the recipient of a Tulsa Artists Fellowship in poetry.
He has taught at the University of Mississippi and Eastern New Mexico University.
He lives in Tulsa with his husband.
| Diaspora | Of home family and sexual identity and spiritual certaintysteve |
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72.99 Lei
