Palace of Forty Pillars

By Armen Davoudian

Wry, tender, and formally innovative, Armen Davoudian's debut poetry collection, The Palace of Forty Pillars, tells the story of a self estranged from the world around him as a gay adolescent, an Armenian in Iran, and an immigrant in America. It is a story darkened by the long shadow of global tragedies--the Armenian genocide, war in the Middle East, the specter of homophobia. With masterful attention to rhyme and meter, these poems also carefully witness the most intimate encounters: the awkward distance between mother and son getting ready in the morning, the delicate balance of power between lovers, a tense exchange with the morality police in Iran.

In Isfahan, Iran, the eponymous palace has only twenty pillars--but, reflected in its courtyard pool, they become forty. This is the gamble of Davoudian's magical, ruminative poems: to recreate, in art's reflection, a home for the speaker, who is unable to return to it in life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1959030361
• ISBN13: 9781959030362
• Release Date: March 2024
• Publisher: Tin House Books
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"