FATHER FISHEYE: POEMS

By Peter Balakian

“Peter Balakian makes a virtue of self-restraint. His poems are so self-effacing that the reader is sucked into their landscapes and comes to identify very closely with the poet. . . nowhere does this young poet strike a false note, posture, imitate, or pretend. It’s refreshing to read a first book as careful and serious as this one.”
— Publisher’s Weekly review (Spring  1980)

“Peter Balakian has a vision of a shared ground in nature and ourselves. The book’s title, with is suggestion of a fisheye camera lens as well as the literal eye of a fish, is apt; it is a universe seen through ancestral eyes, and also defined by the intense, distorted lens that sees more than the bodily eye can. This is a strong and unusual first book.”
— Ararat  review (Winter 1981)

The Sheep Meadow Press (1979)