Dyer's Thistle

Some poets find a voice, others seem born into one. From the latter group, Balakian writes out of an intriguing heritage. His family hails from Armenia, a country which suffered genocide (1.5 million Armenians executed in what is now Turkey in 1915) and whose storehouse of imagery includes cypress trees and oriental rugs. He has the skill to bounce this rich legacy off a childhood spent in New Jersey and a coming-of-age that is squarely in sync with the American dream of family and home. He writes of napping as an eight-year-old on the Kashan in the living room: ""I slept on the rug/ curled and uncovered//and the sea of ivory/ between the flowers/ undulated as if the back/ of heavy sheep were breathing/ in my mouth."" Hence, a sense of location is created that is at once contemporary and olden, and the sorrows of his ancestors inform the hopes he has for his children. Balakian also shows a firm control of form, sometimes using a last line or stanza to scoot off in a new, plausible direction, thereby giving a poignant weight to the penultimate. (Apr.)