"Ode to the Duduk" by Peter Balakian

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 21, 2018   Ode to the Duduk   Peter Balakian

It's not the wind I hear driving south through the Catskills—it's just bad news from the radio and then a hailstorm morphs into sunlight —look up and there's— an archipelago of starlings trailing some clouds— But how does the wind come through you primordial hollow—unflattened double reed— so even now when bad news comes with the evening report— I can press a button on the dashboard and hear your breath implode the way wind blows through the slit windows of a church in Dilijan, then a space in my head fills with a sound that rises from red clay dust           roads and slides through your raspy apricot wood— Hiss of tires, wet tarmac, stray white lines night coming like wet dissolve to pixilation— Praise to the glottal stop of every hoarse whisper, every sodden tree which speaks through your hollow carved wood— so we can hear the air flow over starlings rising and dipping as         the mountains glaze the sun— so we can hear the bad news kiss the wind through your whetted reed—                Copyright © 2018 Peter Balakian. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "The duduk (pronounced doo-dook) is an ancient double-reed wind instrument carved from aged apricot wood. It is indigenous to Armenia, though variations of the instrument are found in the Caucasus and other parts of the Middle East. It is characterized by a rich, earthy, and what might be called haunted sound. It is distinctive from reed instruments in the West." —Peter Balakian   Peter Balakian is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Ozone Journal (University of Chicago Press, 2015), which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, and four prose books, including Black Dog of Fate, which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. He teaches at Colgate University and lives in Hamilton, New York. Poetry by Balakian   Ozone Journal (University of Chicago Press, 2015) "& Later," by Adrian Matejka "Musical Instrument" by Luis Cernuda "Boreal" by Andrew Joron May Guest Editor: Matthew Shenoda   Thanks to Matthew Shenoda, author of Tahrir Suite: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Shenoda and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038