Instructions for Seeing a Ghost
This poetry collection is the record of an American’s return home after a decade abroad, an exile imposed solely because he loved another man. In a virtuoso display of lyric and formal inventiveness, Bellin-Oka’s poems meditate on the myriad losses engendered by diaspora: of home, family and sexual identity, and spiritual certainty.
“Steve Bellin-Oka’s poems hold in balance an intensified language and a passionate voice that bring together the struggles of the inner life with stark realities. This is a book of arresting authenticity.”—Peter Balakian, Pulitzer-Prize winner and judge
Out of the Frame
These poems were written in response to early photographs of the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, which took place July 1-3, 1863 in south central Pennsylvania. I wrote them while I was poet in residence at the battlefield in September and October 2019. Limited edition.
Dead Letter Office at North Atlantic Station
Poems by Steve Bellin-Oka. Number 3 in Volume 5 of Seven Kitchen Press’ limited-edition Summer Kitchens Chapbook Series.
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Tell Me Exactly What You Saw and What You Think It Means
Winner of the 2021 Southern Collective Experience/Blue Mountain Review LGBQT+ Chapbook Prize. Tell Me Exactly What You Saw and What You Think It Means is a collection that makes good on its title. In these searching poems of vulnerability and courage, a queer man wrestles with the complicated gift of surviving the plague wrought by AIDS in the ’80s and ’90s…these poems take stock of life at its midpoint, fixing a steady gaze through the lens of hard-worn experience.
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PROVISO
These poems respond to the paintings of Kristen Tomececk, and illuminate the struggles gay men in marriages to non-US citizens face in trying to obtain green cards for their spouses. Winner of the Antenna Works Open Chapbook Prize.
Steve Bellin-Oka's author website 