Armenia(n)s – Elevation: Poetry Showcase
To celebrate the publication of Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation, our guest co-editors Tatevik Ayvazyan and Naneh V Hovhannisyan have curated an exclusive online poetry showcase for the Wasafiri website. Here, four poets from Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation share some more of their work with us.
If you enjoy engaging with these pieces, read more work from the authors in our latest issue, available to order now.
Armenians know about wandering. They’re a mobile bunch. But don’t be fooled: they’re sedentary too. Both attachments to symbolic – or lost – homelands. And bonds with those real – still existing – ones. Build, stone on stone, and dedicate poems — to places. And parents. And other shadows of unforgotten ancestors.
This small collection of poems by authors from places as far apart as California and Yerevan, grouped for you for this online edition, includes one by Perla Kantarjian in Lebanon, subjected to Israeli bombing as we write. We keep everything crossed for her. Find their other works in our issue. — Tatevik Ayvazyan and Naneh V Hovhannisyan
Arthur Kayzakian
'My Father Loves Iran'
and then I thought what can be more delicate than subjugation
my mother loves my father
my father loves iran
he’ll never say it but it’s trapped in the green of his smile
his country hanging off the edge of his laughter
only the paintings in our living room
can hear those he left behind simmering in the molecules of his voice
and then I thought if time were a thread
it would hang off my mother’s sleeve
in the hour of her loneliness
her hair smells of the moonlight pressed against her window
the only reason my father is alive
is because a shaman once told my mother
if you kill someone you lose your shadow
so your self will never follow you in the sun
and then I thought it is survival
that splits us in half
tearing us apart in the process
if you look at my parents close enough, you will see our country
torn from their hands
Marine Petrossian
Yesterday I was in Aralanj again,
in our country house
looking down upon Kasakh ravine.
And there was my father,
he was alive,
and young he was,
as in those years
when I just started writing poems.
—Yes, Dad,
you are reborn,
poetry is such a thing,
it can overcome death.
But that is not enough,
no, that is not enough,
I will write until
our country is reborn in my poems,
and with strong steps
– with strong steps of a young and strong man –
it will walk into the future.
Tenny Arlen
'Այնթապ | Antap'
When my Dad was little, his grandfather would tell him stories about their family. Years later, when I was little, my father would tell me these same stories about our family.
I don’t know a lot about my family and where we came from, but I know a little. Mostly, I know about my family like a dream, very elusive and ambiguous.
My father’s father was born in Aleppo before the genocide. My father’s grandmother was born in Harput, and her husband, Vartan by name, was born in Antap. I know that Antap had a large citadel. And in truth that is all I know about my family.
But I can imagine many things about Antap. The air always smelled like coriander and sumac. There, the water was the best; it always resembled roses. But like a dream, these abstract ideas are neither real nor true and in truth I don’t know a thing.
Vartan, why didn’t you tell us more stories?
Maybe because you knew that if we are too busy with the delicate past, we won’t look to the future. Maybe you wanted it like this.
Perla Kantarjian
'Artsakh,'
in the black garden of you, butterflies
before broken once fluttered to our children’s
soft laughter. before the massacres, mountains
echoed glorious our ancient Armenian songs
of worship, echoed the endless clinking of Ararat
brandy glasses around dinner tables, giggles shared
between lovers in the quiet of your Stepanakert nights.
Artsakh, where do 120,000 bodies go when erased
from maps? where do the bones resting in the earth,
the burnt homes, where does all the blood?
the smiling angel of Ghazanchetsots.
what of his wings now? what of our Amaras,
our Dadivank, all the honey in our Gandzasar?
who will kneel to their sanctity now? who
will kiss the dampened hand of time carved
holy in our monastery walls? Artsakh, i dreamt
i reached for the Ishkhanaget and grasped
but empty air. dreamt my body becoming
but a single apricot stoneflower waterworn
with all the reckoning, laying in the bare
riverbed, cold from waiting for the world to care.
on the day the news announced you gone
to them, we cracked open like a flood.
sighed the long sigh again, cried at the exiled
fires of another lonely hell. yet in the red mouth
of the shuddering, we held each other warm and prayed
the Hayr Mer. with all rage and disgust in our palms,
we laughed at how they will soon know —
even the flowers of Artsakh will spit on them with our dust.
You can hear select readings from this showcase on our YouTube channel.
From poetry and fiction to newly released book reviews, art, and interviews – cover to cover – our 2024 winter special issue, Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation, guest co-edited by Tatevik Ayvazyan and Naneh V Hovhannisyan, shines a light on modern Armenian identities and experiences. Alongside personal stories of love, loss, and memory, the volume speaks to current global issues – displacement, fragmentation, and conflict — all with eloquence, and all, ultimately, for elevation. This is your jukebox issue of contemporary Armenian writing, with varied content for varied tastes.