American Radiance
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, American Radiance, at turns funny, tragic, and haunting, reflects on the author’s experience immigrating as a child to the United States from Ukraine in 1991.
What does it mean to be an American? Luisa Muradyan doesn’t try to provide an answer. Instead, the poems in American Radiance look for a home in history, folklore, misery, laughter, language, and Prince’s outstretched hand. Colliding with the grand figures of late ’80s and early ’90s pop culture, Muradyan’s imagination pushes the reader forward, confronting the painful loss of identity that assimilation brings.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Through generous associative leaps, Muradyan turns a narrative of assimilation into a debut collection that is as playful as it is wrenching. She writes, "I am not unlike/ the sad clown at the circus/ driving a miniature car,/ stopping dramatically in/ the center stage,/ opening the passenger door/ and waiting for something,/ anything." The primary speaker here, like Muradyan herself, emigrated from Ukraine as a small child and observes America with an attentive yet wary eye, marveling at action movies, Walmart, and professional wrestling. Embarking on a new life elsewhere, Muradyan's speaker stands in the airport, "Wailing/ the only words in English/ that I knew: Oh, God!/ Oh, Pepsi! Oh, Cheerios! Oh, America!" Many of the poems rely on dark humor for their magic, but just as they begin to venture into cuteness, they curl back into a protective position. Rasputin also figures here: erotic and irresponsible, protector and predator, his "old/ and tangled beard/ woven by spiders." Though Muradyan's poems are not formally daring, they feature imaginative enjambments and a whip-smart emotional logic. Occasionally, even the sobs and whispers of family members bubble up onto the page. Muradyan reveals herself to be a savvy and thoroughly modern poet, observing her subjects with a dispassionate, often droll eye.
