Pilibosian Publishes Prizewinning Book of Poems

The news release is a description of a book of poems called "At Quarter Past Reality: New and Selected Poems," published in 1998. It received an award from Writer's Digest the next year. It includes a couple of quotes from reviews.

AT QUARTER PAST REALITY: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Helene Pilibosian includes published and prizewinning poems in lyric and narrative style. The book includes poems of Armenian-American experience, of autobiography and family, about children and general subjects. For example, a poem in the shape of a lit candle, a poem about Watertown, a poem around the subject of blueberry pie, a poem on the effect of a picture of a grandmother known only by the picture, a poem about a life-saving surgery. Many of the poems are set against the background of Boston, Cambridge and Watertown, Mass. The book is first prize winner of the Writer's Digest National Self-Published Book Awards of 1998.
   This is her second book of poems, the first being Carvings from an Heirloom: Oral History Poems (1983). Her work has appeared in many literary anthologies and magazines such as North American Review, The Cape Rock, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review and The Hollins Critic (pending). Three of the poems are prizewinners, another a finalist called "House of Toys," which provided the title for the volume. More recent poems have achieved finalist status in the NEW LETTERS competition.
   Charles Ghigna wrote of the book in Writer's Digest: "Pilibosian's poems are a study in human behavior with small scenes carefully delineated in well-crafted understatement. Each poem examines a particular moment, revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary."
   Leonard Trawick of Cleveland State University Poetry Center found many of the poems memorable and wrote in Raft: "One of my favorite poems in the book is also one of the simplest. "A Plain Green" conveys a woman's delight in a dress that somehow brings out the best in her, suggesting mysterious depths beneath a cool exterior:
       It was the
      green dress that
      made me look
      thin as a mountain stream.

ISBN 1-929966-03-2, 96 pages, paper, $11.50 (add $1.50 shipping).
Order from :
Ohan Press
171 Maplewood St.
Watertown, MA 02472-1324     617-926-2602
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