With “Nostalgia for the Future: New and Selected Poems, 1984-2023,” Award-Winning Poet Gregory Djanikian Returns to the Literary Scene with a Collection that Spans and Celebrates his Prolific Career
Written over several decades, “Nostalgia for the Future” takes for its many subjects romantic love and its difficulties, the horrors of the Armenian genocide of 1915, the émigré experience and the joys and struggles of acculturation, the allure of landscapes and vast distances, the polarity of our material life on earth and our longing for what is ethereal and elusive, all in tones that are humorous, elegiac, contemplative, lyrical, and suffused with a gratitude for the mysteriousness and wonder of life itself.
“. . .Djanikian is masterful in his control of where a poem is going—and the reader with it. . . .,” reads a review from Booklist.
“’Falling Deeply into America’ is one of the most even-tempered and joyful collections I’ve encountered recently. . . . And in the Waspy realms of American poetry, it is a unique and welcome point of view,” said poet Henri Cole.
“. . . Djanikian reflects on social issues, relationships, family history, domestic life, and our connection to nature, always conscious of our place in the larger world. . . . Poets will study this book to learn how Djanikian works such magic. . . .,” said Kathleen Aguero, author at Solstice Magazine.
Born in Alexandria, Egypt of Armenian parentage, Gregory Djanikian came to the United States when he was 8 years old and spent his boyhood in Williamsport, PA. For many years, he was the Director of Creative Writing at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of seven collections of poetry from Carnegie Mellon, most recently of which is “Sojourners of the In-Between.”
His poems have appeared in numerous journals, and in many anthologies including Best American Poetry, Good Poems, American Places (Viking), Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem (Knopf), Seriously Funny (Georgia), Becoming Americas: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing (Library of America), Poem in Your Pocket (The Academy of American Poets), Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond (Norton), and 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (Random House).
“Nostalgia for the Future” is set to release on April 1 by Green Writers Press. Support the International Armenian Literary Alliance’s programming by pre-ordering it on their Bookshop storefront.
The International Armenian Literary Alliance is a nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that supports and celebrates writers by fostering the development and distribution of Armenian literature in the English language. A network of Armenian writers and their champions, IALA gives Armenian writers a voice in the literary world through creative, professional, and scholarly advocacy. Learn more by visiting the website.
