The Palace of Forty Pillars

<p><b>''Davoudian is an enchanting and intriguing new voice'' <i>Sunday Times</i></b><br><b><br>''In this formally radical debut, Armen Davoudian shows how rhyme enacts longing for a homeland left behind; how meter sings to a lost beloved; and how a combination of the two can map a self - or idea of the self - relinquished so that a new life, and all the happiness it deserves, can take shape'' Paul Tran</b><br><br><b>''Marks the arrival of a notable new voice . . . <i>The Palace of Forty Pillars</i> is a moving book as well as an elegant one; its central preoccupation with the theme of belonging speaks memorably to one of the most urgent questions of our time'' Andrew Motion</b><br><br>Wry, tender, and formally innovative, Armen Davoudian''s debut poetry collection, <i>The Palace of Forty Pillars</i>, 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.<br><br>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.</p>