Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

2016 Pulitzer Prize: “Ozone Journal” by Peter Balakian

By Glynn Young 7 Comments

Silver grass - 2016 Pulitzer Prize: “Ozone Journal” by Peter Balakian

Peter Balakian, a professor of English and creative writing at Colgate University, is known for his writing and works about the Armenian genocide, which occurred between 1915 and 1918 during and right after World War I in what is now mostly Turkey. The government of the then-Ottoman Empire put to death between 800, 000 and 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children. Other indigenous and Christian peoples were targeted as well, but the Armenians bore the brunt.

And it was during this genocide that systematic murder, death marches, concentration camps, rape, and confiscation of property became official government policy, something the Nazi government in Germany perfected and the Serbian army in Bosnia emulated. In fact, the word “genocide” was coined in 1943 specifically to describe what happened to the Armenian people. The Turkish government today continues to deny that this genocide actually happened.

Peter Balakian

Peter Balakian

Balakian, himself of Armenian descent and his family directly involved, has written a number of works about the genocide. In 2009, he published The Burning Tigris: The History of the Armenian Genocide and America’s Response. That same year, he published his own memoir, Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past and translated Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide 1915-1918 by Grigoris Balakian, an Armenian priest and Balakian’s great-uncle, who experienced what happened from the very beginning.

In addition to his non-fiction work, Balakian has published seven collections of poetry. The seventh, Ozone Journal, was published in 2015. Last week, it won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. It’s comprised of 17 poems assembled in three parts, most of them long poems with several numbered sections.

Part one includes nine poems that are a kind of historical American travel and cultural journal, a kaleidoscope of experiences and influences. They range from Pueblo, New Mexico, and a meditation of Andy Warhol and Mao Zedong, to childhood images of baseball.

Part two is the heart of the work and the longest (and title) poem in the collection, “Ozone Journal.” It is a cascade of imagery and events: Iraq, living on Riverside Drive in New York, Armenia, jazz, working, the dying of a loved one, youth, growing older, music, popular culture. Balakian blends them in telling the story of a life, and not only his own, for none of us have a life that is only our own. I read it straight through in one sitting, almost mesmerized by what he’s accomplished here.

Part three assembles seven poems, in a way a synthesis of the first two parts in that the poems combine both that poetic semblance of a travel and cultural journal and personal history. “Here and Now, ” the shortest poem in the entire collection, is representative.

Here and Now

Ozone JournalThe day comes in strips of yellow glass over trees.
Then I tell you the day is a poem
I’m only talking to you and only the sky is listening.

The sky is listening; the sky is hopeful
as I am walking into the pomegranate seeds
of the wind that whips up the seawall.

If you want the poem to take on everything,
walk into a hackberry tree,
then walk out beyond the seawall.

I’m not far from a room where Van Gogh
was a patient—his head on a pillow hearing
the mistral careen off the seawall,

hearing the fauvist leaves pelt
the sarcophagi. Here and now

the air of the tepidarium kissed my jaw
and pigeons ghosting in the blue loved me

for a second, before the wind
broke branches and guttered into the river.

What questions can I ask you?
How will the sky answer the wind?

The dawn isn’t heartbreaking.
The world isn’t full of love.

Of all the images Balakian uses in this poem, the question I find most arresting is how the sky will answer the wind. How, indeed?

His six previous books of poetry are Father Fisheye (1979); Sad Days of Light (1983); Reply From Wilderness Island (1988); Dyer’s Thistle (1996); June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000; and Ziggurat (2010). He is also the author of Vise and Shadow: Essays on the Lyric Imagination, Poetry, Art, and Culture (2015). He received his B.A. degree from Bucknell University and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University. He has taught at Colgate since 1980.

Ozone Journal contains a wealth of beauty, but it also does what good poetry should, and that is to challenge and sometimes provoke, to help us see in a different light, and to understand ourselves in ways we might not have grasped.

Photo by Pai Shih, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest and A Light Shining, and Poetry at Work.

Browse more poets and poems

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • Dana Gioia Defines the Enchantment in Poetry - June 12, 2025
  • “I Am the Arrow”: Sarah Ruden Tells Sylvia Plath’s Story - June 10, 2025
  • A Novel in Verse: “Eugene Nadelman” by Michael Weingard - June 5, 2025

Filed Under: Americana Poems, Blog, Books, Poems, Poems about poetry, poetry, poetry reviews

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Maureen says

    April 26, 2016 at 9:53 am

    Balakian is a fabulous poet. His lyricism, erudition, striking visual and sonic imagery are all on display. And out of all that beauty, the devastating conclusion, as in that the last couplet in the selected poem here.

    He should be on every reader’s list.

    Thank you, Glynn.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      April 26, 2016 at 6:56 pm

      Maureen, I wasn’t familiar with his poetry before I read Ozone Journal. And I was wowed.

      Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      April 26, 2016 at 8:46 pm

      I’m putting him on my list. I’ve packed up most of my books. But I just keep buying.

      Reply
      • Glynn says

        April 26, 2016 at 9:41 pm

        The publishers of America thank you!

        Reply
  2. Bethany says

    April 26, 2016 at 10:28 am

    Love these words:

    “and pigeons ghosting in the blue loved me

    for a second…”

    And yes, that last couplet is powerful. Thank you for bringing this poem and poet to my attention, Glynn.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      April 26, 2016 at 6:57 pm

      Thanks for reading, Bethany!

      Reply
  3. Sandra Heska King says

    April 26, 2016 at 8:50 pm

    “for a second, before the wind
    broke branches and guttered into the river.”

    Guttered into the river …

    And yes… The couplet. Thank you, Glynn. As always.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our June Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on Poetry Prompt: Gathering Flowers
  • Don on Poet Laura: Fables and Foxy Chickens
  • L.L. Barkat on 50 States of Generosity: Rhode Island
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on Poet Laura: Fables and Foxy Chickens

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy