Michael Minassian
COMING SOON!
1000 Pieces of Time
by Michael Minassian
ISBN: 978-1-962405-36-2
$17.00 (+ $4.63 US Shipping)
Also available upon release as an Ebook from online retailers: Ebook ISBN: 978-1-962405-37-9
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael Minassian is a retired English Professor and spends his time writing, taking photographs, and traveling with his wife both in the U.S. and overseas. He was born in New York City and grew up in New York and New Jersey. In addition to living in Florida, California, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Texas, he has lived and taught overseas in England, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. He earned a BA in Political Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey and MA in English with a Certificate in Creative Writing at California State University at Dominguez Hills. For over 30 years he was a member of the English Department at Broward College in South Florida, where he was the Director of an annual Screenwriting Film Festival and also wrote and produced the podcast series “Eye on Literature.” In addition, he studied and served as guest tutor for ten years at Cambridge University’s Summer Study Program in the UK. He is currently a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His publications include three poetry chapbooks, one photography chapbook, and 1,000 Pieces of Time is his fourth full-length collection of poems. For more information visit: https://michaelminassian.com
ABOUT THE BOOK:
What is time? These finely crafted, imaginative poems weave fleeting encounters, centuries-long love stories, lingering grudges, and moments of unexpected clarity into a surreal cloth grounded in verisimilitude. Time’s myriad possibilities come to life as historical figures, both real and fictional, face a changing landscape of memory, longing, and desire. Minassian’s vital narrative voice, tempered by compassion and a subtle humor proves a trustworthy guide as characters are drawn to consider if the past is ever truly gone. Other poems in the collection deal with heartache, family, and regret as the reader confronts the same questions: Does the past matter? Does history matter? And how much of reality is composed by the narratives we tell ourselves?
Read Peter Mladinic’s review of 1000 Pieces of Time at THE BOOKENDS REVIEW.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
In this impressive new collection, we immediately encounter Achilles, Marlowe, Amelia Earhart, Lot, Hamlet, Emily Dickinson, Dante, Cromwell, Helen of Troy, Darwin, Trotsky, the Buddha, et al. Clearly, Michael Minassian covers a lot of territory. His engaging blend of realism and surrealism adroitly develops his principal themes: desire, death, and––as his title reflects––the numerous changes wrought by the relentless passing of time. With its precise diction, creative imagery, and wise insinuations, this volume will enrich your poetry shelf.
––George J. Searles, editor/publisher of Glimpse Poetry Magazine
and author of Escape from Jersey City.
In the mind of Michael Minassian, it is not just Prince Hamlet for whom the time is out of joint. The first third of his newest poetry collection is populated with a vast array of characters––both historical and fictional––who appear in the unlikeliest of places. The theme is not new for Minasian. We have seen this trope employed in two of his previous works. Like a card trick in the hands of a deft magician, however, we never grow tired of seeing it performed. The magic here is not sleight of hand, though. It is instead the result of a gifted combination of imagination, intelligence, genuine emotion, and mastery of craft. The lyrical quality of the collection is most evident in the second third, where the poems are more personal and introspective and where we find the poet contemplating his own place in time. And in the collection’s third section, Minassian completes his thought-provoking contemplation on the fourth dimension by creating a surreal world of dream and film noir and reflects on “moments frozen in time / thawed by fading memories.”
––Michael Blanchard, Editor of Slant Poetry Journal
and author of The Pearl Diver’s Daughter & Other Poems
Michael Minassian’s distinctive voice propels his new collection, A Thousand Pieces of Time, into spirited engagement with memory, history, and the malleability of time itself. From encounters with Achilles on the subway, to Emily Dickinson at a restaurant (where we see “she was working as a waitress / at a Waffle House off I-95, / wearing a Boston Red Sox / baseball cap and / hot pink lipstick”), to Helen of Troy at Trader Joe’s, we indulge ages past, present, and future with resonant rhythm. Blending observation and meditation, crafting with wit and sincerity, adding generous dashes of mortality and legacy, Minassian ferments this rich emotive brew by careful balance of precision and surrealism, serving up poems profound and immediate, poems that stick to the heart like bitter honey.
—Michael Dwayne Smith, author of Shaking Music from the Angry Air
This is a book of diversions and discoveries. It leaps through time shattering it to shards. We’re in ancient Egypt, looking at the house next door, in a future with time machines. References reach from haute to pop, from today’s news to classic films, famous writers, though none shows up as you’d expect. The book comes in three parts. The first features historic characters in today’s world, Achilles on a subway, Kit Marlowe in a bar. Minassian’s whimsies are funny but resonant, bon-bons with nutritious ingredients. Among the pleasures are Minassian’s original tropes, metaphors to mull, similes to savor. In Part Two the poems turn dreamlike, enigmatic, anchored by the poet’s sensibility. Part Three offers lyric adventures, what-if tales, serious family stories. This fine collection is unpredictable, unpretentious, addictively entertaining.
––Robert Wexelblatt, author of Girl Asleep and Other Poems and Hsi-wei Tales
