Description
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.
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.
Book Information
ISBN 9781574417876
Author Steve Bellin-Oka
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint University of North Texas Press,U.S.
Publisher University of North Texas Press,U.S.
'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 One'
Long before I was what I am now, short
of breath, bald, just returned with arthritic knees
from exile in another country's muck and red
volcanic soil, too near-sighted to discern
the High Plains tumbleweed from the burning
bush of myth, scorched now and silent,
long before this, I was the first son my mother bore
that 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.
Book Information
ISBN 9781574417876
Author Steve Bellin-Oka
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint University of North Texas Press,U.S.
Publisher University of North Texas Press,U.S.
