Co-edited by Catherine Fletcher and Lola Koundakjian.

Zahrad (1924– 2007), the pen name of Zareh Yaldizciyan, was an Armenian poet. He was born and lived in Istanbul, Turkey, a city which he celebrated in many of his poems. He began writing under a pen name because he felt that his family would not be receptive to his work. He was the author of eight collections of poetry including The Big City (1960), Green Soil (1976), Two Springs With One Stone (1989), and Water Up the Wall (2004). Along with Zareh Khrakhouni he was one of the primary promoters of the “new poetry” movement in Western Armenian letters as well as the founder of Objective Symbolism. Levon Ananyan, the president of the Writers Union of Armenia, characterized Zahrad as “the huge oak tree of diasporan poetry, whose literary heritage had a deep and stable influence upon modern poetry of not only the diaspora, but also Armenia.”

Գող

Մեր քթին ակնոց
Փողկապ մեր վզին
Դեռ նոր արդուկուած
Համազգեստն հագած
Մենք – պաշտօնապէս -
Կը դիտենք Կիկօն
որ խուճապահար
Մեր մանկութենէն փշուր մը գողցեր
Պահեր է – մոռցեր թէ ո՞ր քարին տան

GIGO THE THIEF

Translated by Diana Der Hovanessian

Eye glasses on our nose,
neckties on our throat,
freshly pressed shirt and coat,
our scowls pressed in place—

we stare at Gigo. No, we glare
at this clown who stole
our lost childhood which he wears
shining on his face.

Երկնածիծաղ

Երկինքն ի վեր խարսխած
Չարաճճի աստղ մը կայ
Երեք միլիոն տարի է – երկրագունթին կը նայի
Ու կը մարի խնդալէն

CELESTIAL LAUGHTER

Translated by Ralph Setian

Anchored high in the heavens
There is a naughty star
That has been looking at the earth for three million years
And dying of laughter

Երկնաքար

Քար չի բաւեր քարկոծելու անջատ անջատ բոլորս ալ
Կը հաւաքուինք նոյն աշխարհին վրայ ամէնքով միատեղ
Ու կը սպասենք ահանգնադղորդ երկնաքարին որ չի գար

CELESTIAL STONE

Translated by Ralph Setian

There aren’t enough stones to stone each of us one by one
We gather together all in the same place on the world
And we await the tumultuous stone which doesn’t come

Սամուէլին Երկրորդ Սէրը

1
- Օրը այսպէս կ՛անցնի –

Վերելակը վեր
Վերելակը վար
Վեր – վար
Վերելակը վեր – Սամուէլ վեր
Վերելակը վար – Սամուէլ վար
Վեր վար վեր վար Սամուէլ վեր
Վեր վար վեր վար Սամուէլ վար
Նատիան կու գայ – վերելակը վեր
Նատիան կ՛երթայ – վերելակը վար
Սամուէլ Սամուէլ Սամուէլ վեր
Սամուէլ Սամուէլ Սամուէլ վար
Սամուէլ վեր
Սամուէլ վար
Վեր – վար

2
- Երբ Սամուէլ առանձին է –

Նան – Նատիա – Նատիա – տի
Նան – Նատիա – Նատիա – նա
Սամուէլ վեր
Նան – Նատիա – Նատիա – տի
Սամուէլ վար
Նան – Նատիա – նան – նատի

3
- Երբ Սամուէլ եւ Նատիա վերելակին մէջ են –

Անոր նայիլ – ոչ – Սամուէլին աչքերը վար
Թէ չնայիլ – ոչ – Սամուէլին աչքերը վէր
Սամուէլին աչքերը վար
Զինքը սիրել – ոչ – Սամուէլին սիրտը վար
Թէ չսիրել – ոչ – Սամուէլին սիրտը վեր
Սամուէլին սիրտը վեր

4
- Երբ Սամուէլ վերելակին մէջ առանձին կ՛իջնէ վար –

Վար Սամուէլ վար
Սիրուեր է – չէ սիրուեր – Սամուէլ – վերելակը վար
Կը սիրեմ ըսեր է – չէ ըսէր – Սամուէլ – վերելակը վար
Վար Սամուէլ վար

5
- Օրը այսպէս կ՛անցնի –

Վեր – վար
Վերելակը վեր – Սամուէլ վեր
Վերելակը վար – Սամուէլ վար
Վեր վար վեր վար Սամուէլ վեր
Վեր վար վեր վար Սամուէլ վար
Նատիան կու գայ – Սամուէլին սիրտը վեր
Նատիան կ՛երթայ – Սամուէլին սիրտը վար
Սամուէլ վեր
Սամուէլ վար

SAMUEL’S SECOND LOVE

Translated by Lola Koundakjian

1

- The day goes on like this –

Elevator up
Elevator down
Up – down
Elevator up – Samuel’s up
Elevator down – Samuel’s down
Up down up down Samuel’s up
Up down up down Samuel’s down
Nadya comes – elevator up
Nadya leaves – elevator down
Samuel Samuel Samuel’s up
Samuel Samuel Samuel’s down
Samuel up
Samuel down
Up – down

2
- When Samuel is alone –

Nan – Nadya – Nadya – Dee
Nan – Nadya – Nadya – Na
Samuel up
Nan – Nadya – Nadya – Dee
Samuel down
Nan – Nadya – Nan – Nadee

3

- When Samuel and Nadya are in the elevator -

To look at her – no – Samuel’s eyes down
Or not to stare – no – Samuel’s eyes up
Samuel’s eyes down
To love her – no – Samuel’s heart down
Or not to love her – no – Samuel’s heart up
Samuel’s heart up

4

- When Samuel rides down alone in the elevator -

Down Samuel down
He is loved – not loved – Samuel – elevator down
I love he said – didn’t say – Samuel – elevator down
Down Samuel down

5
- The days goes on like this –

Up – down
Elevator up – Samuel’s up
Elevator down – Samuel’s down
Up down up down Samuel’s up
Up down up down Samuel’s down
Nadya arrives – Samuel’s heart up
Nadya leaves – Samuel’s heart down
Samuel up
Samuel down

Co-edited by Catherine Fletcher and Lola Koundakjian.

Nigoghos Sarafian (1902-1972) was born on a ship going to Bulgaria and was educated in Armenian and French schools in Bulgaria. During World War I he and his brother were thrown onto the roads of Bessarabia (now Moldova) and the Crimea until he arrived in Istanbul, then under postwar Allied occupation. He lived there until the Turkish Revolution in 1923, and then fled to Paris, where he would live and work as a typographer until the end of his life. Sarafian was part of the Menk (or We) generation of Paris-based Armenian writers. He published stories, essays, and poetry including the collections Flux and Reflux (1939), The Citadel (1946), Mediterranean (1971) as well as the prose poem The Bois de Vincennes (1947).

Անձկութիւն

Կարօտը չէր ետիս ձգած քաղաքիս
Ու սէրը չէր ծովին, հովին. վախը չէր
Անծանօթին, որ կը ճզմէր իմ հոգիս,
Ափի մը դէմ երբ կանգ կ՛առնէր նաւը մեր։

Այլ երթալու մեծ սարսուռին պակասն էր
Որ կ՛ընէր զիս յանկարծ թշուառ, կը բանար
Մէջս պարապ մ՛երբ նոր երկրին առջեւ՝ մեր
Նաւուն խարիսխը կը քակուէր յամրաբար։

Արկածներու սպառնալիքն էր այդ պերճ
Որ կը պակսէր. հասնելու ցաւն էր, նման
Անոր, որ լեռն իր ոտքին տալէ վերջ,
Տխուր՝ կ՛առնէ վերադարձի իր ճամբան։

ANXIETY

Translated by Vahé Oshagan

Not the yearning for a city left behind,
nor the love of the seas and the winds,
it was not the fear of the
unknown
that held my heart in its grip
each time the ship came to stop
facing a port.

No, –but the absence of the anguish
of the mighty shudder of departing
that plunged me of a sudden in misery,
that emptied me of myself
each time I came to face a new land,
while the anchor rumbled slowly into the sea.

It was the threat that seemed amiss,
the menace of adventures aglow with joy,
it was the pain of arriving,
like the climber having reached the top.
has to return and walk back,
crying in his heart.

Բ- ՄԱԿԸՆԹԱՑՈՒԹՅՈՒՆ (հատուած)

Մակընթացումն, հսկա
Բազուկներ վեր կհանեն ավազներուն մեջ խըրած
Նավերն ահա կպոռթկա
Ծովն ահարկու ծավալմամբ, ծոցին միլիառ արարած:
Բախտագուշակ կընոջ պես,
Ծոխը կուգա, կսփռե խաժ ուլունքներ, ոստրեներ:
Ջուրի հոլեր՝ լուսակեզ
Կթավալին: Ոսկորի խըշըրտուքով, տարուբեր,
Քարերն իրար կքըսվին:
Կփսփըսան ավաղներն: Խըխունջներու բյուր՝ ճերմակ
Փրփրուն լորձունք մ՛արեւին
Տակ կշողա: Կդողա ջուրի ամեն մեկ երակ
Սրինգի նըման։ Կդողան
Մեղրոտ շրթներ: Կարապի վազքով ամեն մեկ կոհակ
Կուգա, կ՛իյնա ափին վրան,
Կսարսըռա կյանքով ժիր: Անդին կանչեր, խոլ ճիչեր,
Երթեւեկում վրանե վրան՝
Պըղինձի գույն բազմության մ՛որ կխայտա կենսաբեր
Ծովուն դիմաց, նախնական
Մերկության մեջ։ Մարդկային խոր պաշտամունքն ահա։ Սեր՝
Ծովուն հանդեպ, որ շող, ցող
Առատաբուռն ցանելով սերմացանի պես կուգա։

from FLOOD-TIDE II

Translated by Virgil Strohmeyer

It is flood-tide. Enormous
Arms resurrect from the shallows’ clutching sands sleeping
Vessels: Oh the stupendous
Sea roar’s awful progress; its billions of creature enfolding.
Like a fortune-reading girl
The sea comes strewing abroad cerulean pearls, oysters.
Fire-lit water swirls,
Whirls. With the dry crunch of bones, the swayers,

Stones against each other rattle.
The sands sibilate. The sun, from heaped snails’ assembling,
On their white foamy spittle
Shines. Each and every watery vein trembling
Like a flute. Honeyed lips
Tremble. Each wave, a swan’s running gate resembling,
Comes to the beach and flips,
Vibrating with vigorous life. Cries and wild laments
Ping-pong down the slips
A copper-colored multitude, which frolics in the element’s
Vitality, is stripped,
Pristine. Behold these profound human rites. Love,
At the sea, whether ray or spray,
Comes many-fisted sprinkling like a sower.

Վենսենի անտառը (հատուած)

20

Գթառատ ծառաստան մըն է ամառը Վենսենի անտառը, տանս ետին, զինվորական հիվանդանոցի մը շուրջը։ Իր ծառերը կսահին հիվանդներուն որ զինվորներուն տենդավառ երազին մեջեն, մխիթարելու համար զանոնք բնության բառերով, որպեսզի չարթննան անոնք իրենց անօգուտ զոհաբերման ցավով, իրենց կտրված թեւին կամ ոտքին կարոտովը։ Անոնք կրնան տեսնել իրենց թեւն ու ոտքը քարյուղի արքայի մը կամ սեւ շուկայեն հարստացողի մը ձեռքին մեջ եւ կրնան աղաղակել քարերը ցնցող տխրությամբ։ Ամեն կես գիշերե վերջ՝ կլսեմ հոշոտվող թռչունի մը ճիչը։ Ու աղերսական այդ կանչը կխրի սրտիս դաշույնի մը պես։ Կ՛ելլեմ երբեմն անկողինես, կմոտենամ պատուհանին, տռամին՝ որ կհիշեցնե միշտ ինծի ուրիշ ողբերգություն մը, զանգվածային ոճիր մը ու ոչինչ կտեսնեմ։ Ոչի՜նչ։ Կլռե աղաղակողը։ Կվերահաստատվի թավշային լռությունը։ Տկարը զուրկ է հետաքրքականութենեն։ Աշխարհը հոգնած է մեր ժողովրդի ողբը լսելեն։ Մենք իսկ հոգնած։ Ուզեցինք պայքարիլ ու չգիտցանք կազմահերպել այդ պայքարը։ Տվինք աշխարհի ամենեն մեծ հերոսները եւ սակայն անոնք եղան լեռներու արծիվներ միայն, քաջ անհատական արարքներով։ Չեղան միակտուր ծառացումը, միակտուր վրեժը ։ Ու վատությամբ տարինք մեր կեսին ջարդը, դավաճանությամբ, անկարությամբ։

Տնակ մը կա այս պարտեզին մեջ։ Տարիներով կարծեցի, թե մեռելներու հատուկ շենք մըն էր ան։ Գիշերները կլսվեին քայլեր անոր շուրջ։ Կբանային դուռը, կքաշկռտեին պարկի նման բան մը։ Կճչային դրան ծխնիները։ Օր մը շարժեցի խնդուքը ծանոթ բժիշկի մը։ Անկե ի վեր գիտեմ, թե դեղերու շտեմարան մըն է ան։ Հիվանդանոցին մեջ կա հայութենե ելած հայուհի մը, կինը ֆրանսիացի պաշտոնյայի մը։ Կա իր երիտասարդ զավակը՝ որ հայերեն բառ մը չունի բերնին մեջ։ Կա նաեւ հայ վիրավոր մը, որ չի գիտեր, թե հանուն ինչո՞ւ կռված է։ Պիտի մեռնի ու կ՛ուզե մեռնիլ այն ժամուն՝ երբ շենքին մյուս ծայրը բնակող պչրասեր սրտաբուխ հայուհին կ՛այցելե իրեն։ Չհասաւ փափաքին։ Հիվանդանոցը մերժեց պահել զինք մինչեւ մահը…

from THE BOIS DE VINCENNES

Translated by Christopher Atamian

20

In summer the Bois de Vincennes becomes a merciful forest behind my house, surrounding a military hospital. The trees flow through the fevered dreams of soldiers and wounded alike and console them with nature’s words, so that they don’t wake up to the futility of their sacrifice and feel nostalgia for their amputated limbs. They might see these organs in the hands of some oil baron or black market profiteer and then cry their sorrow until even the stones are moved to emotion. Every day after midnight, I hear the anguished cry of a bird being dismembered. And this pitiful cry pierces my heart like a knife. Sometimes I rise from my bed and go to my window and approach another tragedy, a collective crime. Yet I see nothing at all. Nothing. Whoever was screaming has quieted down. A velvet silence has returned. The weak don’t interest me. The world is tired of listening to our people’s lamentations. We are tired of listening to them as well. We wanted to fight but we didn’t know how to organize our battles. We gave the world its greatest heroes but they turned out to be eagles flying in the hills, brave only in their individual actions. We didn’t rise up united or avenge ourselves of even a single occupier. Cowards, betrayed and impotent, we watched as half our people were massacred.

There’s a small house in this garden, which for years I mistook for a morgue. Every night I heard footsteps around it. A door would open and then I’d hear the sound of a large bag being dragged along the ground. The door hinges creaked. One day I explained my fears to a friend of mine, a doctor who laughed at me and explained that it was just a storage room where they kept medications. At the hospital there’s an assimilated Armenian woman who is married to a French employee. She has a young child who doesn’t speak any Armenian. There’s also a wounded Armenian man who has no idea why he went to war in the first place. He knows that he is going to die and he wants to pass away when that coquette but friendly Armenian woman who lives on the other side of the building comes to visit. The young man’s dream never comes true. The hospital refuses to keep him until he dies…

Ճամբորդութեան խենթ սերեն

Խռֆած բուեր կսուլեն գիշերները ու կ՛անցնին
Կայարանե կայարան։ Հեռուներեն տակավին,
Շոգեկառքե՜ր, կդողամ. ձեր հեւոցին, ցուրտ հովին
Դեմ ես տղա մ՛եմ կարծեք ու պատուհանըս՝ հանի։

Նոճիներու պես հոսուն՝ ձեր ծուխերուն մեջեն դեռ
Ես կտեսնեմ մեռելներ։ Վիշապժներու բոցացան՝
Պտուտակները կ՛ոռնան։ Քաղաքներեն որ անցանք,
Շոպեկառքե՜ր, մերկ սրտես միս ու արյուն են փեթտեր։

Քարափներու գույնզգույն ճըրագներ դեռ կծորին
Խեժի նման՝ ուղեղես։ Սրճարաններ կան վհուկ։
Ճամբաներու ծառը քար՝ որուն օձերն էիք դուք։
Շոգեկառքեր, քանդվեր ծառը կախարդ խնձորին։

Ճամփորդելու խենթ սերեն առողջությունս գնաց։
Ապսենթներու հորդուն մ՛է անիվներուդ շունչը սառ։
Ծաղկախտավոր խափշիկը պաղ գետերեն կհուսա
Մարել կրակը ներքին ու կմեռնի արբեցած։

Շոգեկառքե՜ր, սեւ հուշեր, օ՜հ ձըգեցէք զիս հանգիստ։
Դադրեցուցե՜ք ձեր անքուն մեքենաները կարի։
Հոգիս հոգնած ու հիվանդ՝ մեռելի պես կ՛երկարի։
Ոչ ուժ ունի, ոչ փափաք՝ ճամբորդելու ալ հոգիս։

A WILD LOVE OF TRAVEL

Translated by Diana Der Hovanessian

From station to station a crowd of night owls
whistle and pass. Even from far away I tremble
with its heaving breath as if I were a boy
in an open window in a cold wind.

I see dead men standing like cypresses surrounded
by it. And like vishab* dragons
its metal screws howl. Cities we pass are peeled
from my flesh, bone, and heart.

Colored lights trickle on the edge of black
precipices and stick like gum to my brain.
The coffee houses have faceless clocks and
the roads grow trees with snakes and poison apples.

No wonder then because of my crazy love of travel
my health deteriorates. The cold breath
of the wheels is slow absinthe. The porter
trying to extinguish its flame dies drunk.

Trains, black memories, pass and leave me
in pain. Stop this sleepless sewing machine.
My soul has neither the strength nor will
to travel any more. But the tracks stretch on.

* Evil dragon of Armenian legends

By Sara Flood

With illustration by Amir Shahlan Amiruddin.

Everyone­ was looking for love that summer, and no one could find it, and so people started doing the natural thing and going back to the poor fools who had loved them before. It was a good thing too, if you ask me, because the city had started to become unhinged. You’d get used to seeing these happy-as-a-clam couples strolling along, attached at the arms, at the hips, at the mouth like well-made jigsaw puzzles; then you’d see them later on—but just one of them this time—like those missing puzzle pieces made vulgar in their sore-thumbness with cutout limbs and clipped-off smiles.

But that summer there was nothing a quick coat of shellac wouldn’t fix. All broken hearts mended each other and popped up for display with a lustrous sheen. Already, half the neighborhood had caught the affliction. You could see them everywhere with their former loves—little wind-up dolls on parade, at the beach, in the park on the swing sets. The children were getting sick of being ousted from their playgrounds by so many drooling, love struck adults. They stayed indoors with their small arms folded. I did too, for the most part. I glanced sideways from windows, ran terrified from the phone. I feared an epidemic. That summer I had a part-time gig at the nursing home, and despite being surrounded by retirees, I knew better than to think I’d outsmarted it.

And sure enough, just a few days into summer, I heard the fanciful toll of a bicycle outside and then a tap on my door. When I opened it—not thinking—there stood my old college fling Jim. I swear I’d thought of him so little in the past few years that he’d all but disappeared from my mind, but there he was, rematerialized on my porch with about seven musical instrument cases dumped beside him.

Jim. What do I say? He had the kind of surprise-attack eyes that should’ve been illegal. He had hair that brought to mind nothing but the word cascade.

In college he had played guitar, of course, because every boy in college had played guitar. But by the time he traipsed up to my door that summer, he had actually gotten good. In fact, Jim had blossomed into a full-scale one-man-band now, with his banjo and his concertina and a harmonica strapped to his chin. He didn’t have to say anything; he made such beautiful noise. And even though I told myself right there to do the sane thing, to shut the door and turn away, it only took a moment for him to pull me close to him in that way he had, where I could feel my heart pounding, and between our hearts, a reverberation of strings.

At the nursing home, one of the women there—her name was Annabelle but she liked us to call her Granny Belle—stopped me cold and said, “You too?” It must have been obvious, such loud noise. “Your ex boyfriend, Julie?” she said. “Ex for a reason!”

Granny Belle always smelled of elastic. She wore a polka-dot nightie and spent her time smoothing it down while she nagged. She had me sit down beside her and tell her about all of the bad times Jim and I had.

I admitted it, sure, there had been loads of bad times, but there had been good times too. And she said it was easy to look at the good things, to toss them over all that bad like a spate of decorative throw pillows. “Lovely,” she said, “but useless.”

She said, “Love these days,” as if that explained everything. “These days,” she told me, “young people lie to themselves all the time, till wouldn’t you know it? They’re old and deceived.” She said, “Do you know what it really means: love is blind? It’s that you build yourself into a cave until you can’t see out.” She said, “Same guy. Same problems. Just a fancier way of spitting them up.”

But what did she know? Batty old thing. Her husband had been dead sixteen years, and he wasn’t even her first husband.

I told her I wouldn’t take love advice from someone so out of touch with it, someone who recently started smelling so strongly of Band-Aids. Except, of course, I didn’t really say that; you can’t say that to a widow in a nursing home, Band-Aid smell or not. What I said was, “Thanks as always, Granny Belle, for your infinite wisdom,” and I got myself out of there.

But she started me thinking, anyway, as I listened to Jim play for me, how he used to go for hours who-knows-where and how he used to be sad and take his sadness very seriously all the time, but when I felt sad, he found it funny. I squinted at him across the room with his concertina, trying to see if those things were still there—how he never remembered my cat’s name was Winnie and insisted on calling her Weiner instead, how he kept the TV on when I was studying, how he never said goodnight and only started snoring, and how, when he left, inexplicably, it made a hollow space midway down my ribcage through which all my most vital organs could very well have slipped.

And Granny Belle, in her polka-dot nightie, said, “That’s nothing, girlie. When you’re old as me, you’re so holed through, you’re practically Swiss cheese.” And still I thought she must be crazy. The cat and the TV and the seriousness—that had all happened years ago, and we were so much the better for it. Just look, I thought to myself, at how much Jim had changed.

But by then it was getting near the end of summer, and you could see everywhere people’s hands starting to go unheld. One day, I watched Jim with his hair cascading just as always and with his pretty eyes that really were just pretty eyes, and I started to think, well, he did sing off-key and he was kind of a slob and mostly a jerk, and where was he going now? To another former girlfriend’s house?

“Not a chance,” I told him. “Not in the summer of old love,” I said.

But it was just like I’d warned him to put on a sweater, and off he went, holding his banjo high in the air. He marched away strumming. And as the wind raked the high notes back to me, I changed my mind, like the fool I’d become. I waved to him madly. It was the most invigorating music I had ever heard. And when it faded along with him until he got so far away that he all but disappeared, until it was hard to know if he’d ever really been there, I packed up and set off in search of the one who had come before him, regretting, regretting that I hadn’t stayed around.

END

Sara Flood’s fiction appears in Bat City Review, the Santa Monica Review, and Prism Review. Her nonfiction is forthcoming in New Letters, where she won the Dorothy Churchill Cappon Prize for the Essay.

Co-edited by Catherine Fletcher and Lola Koundakjian

Paruyr Sevak (1924 – 1971), by birth Paruyr Rafaeli Ghazarian, was an Armenian poet and literary critic. Sevak was born in Soviet Armenia and studied at Yerevan State University and Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow. A doctor of philology, Sevak was one of the senior researchers of the Manuk Abeghyan Yerevan Institute of Literature. He published seven volumes of poetry such as the book length poem The Unsilenceable Belfry (1959), a remembrance of the Armenian genocide; Man in a Palm (1965); and Let There Be Light (1972) as well as several scholarly works, including a study of the 18th century minstrel Sayat-Nova. Paruyr Sevak died in 1971 in a mysterious car crash. He is considered one of the greatest Armenian poets of the 20th century.

ՄԵԶԱՆԻՑ ՄԷԿԸ

Մեզանից մԷկը, անշուշտ, այստեղ չէ,
Մեզանից մէկը՝
Կամ ես, կամ թէ դու:
Թէ դու չես այստեղ՝
Ապա ինչպէ՞ս է,
Որ ինձ հետ ես միշտ՝
Իմ սենեակի մէջ,
Իմ մատների տակ,
Իմ լեզուի վրայ:
Թէ ես չեմ այստեղ,
Ապա ինչպէ՞ս է,
Որ ես հետդ չեմ՝
Քո սենեակի մէջ,
Քո մատների տակ,
Քո լեզուի վրայ:
Ճիշտն այն է գուցէ,
Որ մենք երկուսս էլ այստեղ չենք լինում.
Ինքս այնտեղ եմ, որտեղ որ դու ես,
Իսկ դու այնտեղ ես, որտեղ որ ես եմ:
Այսպես գալիս ենք մենք դէպի իրար,
Դու՝ ինձ մօտ,
Ես՝ քեզ մօտ,
Եւ… մենք չենք հանդիպում… այս քանի տարի:

ONE OF US

Translated by Dora Sakayan

One of us, certainly, is never here,
One of us,
Either you or I.
If you are not here,
Then how come
You’re always with me,
In my room,
Under my fingers,
On my lips?
If I am not here,
Then how come
I am not with you,
In your room,
Under your fingers,
On your lips?
The truth is, perhaps,
That we’re both not here:
I am there where you are,
You are there where I am.
Thus we are drawn to each other,
You towards me,
I towards you,
And … we never meet … for so many years.

ՀԱՆԵԼՈՒԿ ԱՌԱՋԻՆ

-Իսկ այդ ի՞նչն է,
Որ երբ հասաւ՝
Փախցնում է մեր քունն աչքից:

Պապիկն իսկույն հազն իր հազաց
Ու երբ պրծաւ բարեյաջող,
Իսկոյն ասաց.
-Ծերութի՜ւնը:

Պատերազմի երես տեսած
Հայրիկն ասաց.
-Գերութի՜ւնը:

Մայրիկն ասաց.
-Մերութի՜ւնը:
Ու կրկնեց.
-Մերութի՜ւնը:

Փոքրիկ տղան
Փոքրիկ ափը զարկեց ափին
Ու ձայնիկն իր միացնելով
Զնգուն ծափին՝
Չասա՜ց… գոռա՛ց.
-Ձմեռ Պապի՜ն:

Իսկ աղջիկը արբունքահաս՝
Վառուած ձեռով
Յարդարելով իր վարսերը՝
Ոչի՛նչ չասաց.
Բայց մտածեց.
-Պա՞րզ չէ, սէ՜րը…

FIRST RIDDLE

Translated by Dora Sakayan

What is it
That when you have it,
Makes you lose your night’s sleep?

The Grandfather went on to cough,
And when he was happily through,
He answered at once:
“Senility.”

The Father who had been
Through war said:
“Captivity.”

The Mother said:
“Maternity.”
And then again:
“Maternity.”

The little boy
Clapped palm to palm,

Then adding his little voice
To the vibrant clapping,
He didn’t say, but rather screamed:
“Santa Claus!”

And the pubescent girl,
Ran her burning fingers
Through her hair,
She said nothing,
She just thought:
“What else? It’s love!”

ՉԵՄ ՈՒՇԱՑԵԼ

Ուշացե՞լ եմ: Թո՛ղ որ այդպէս, թո՜ղ որ, անգի՛ն,
Անծանոթ եմ աղջկական քո նազանքին.

Անտեղեակ եմ, թէ ինչպէս ես դու ժպտացել,
Տասնվեցդ երբ որ նոր է դեռ լրացել:

Թո՛ղ որ ես չեմ ստացողը քո առաջին
Աղջկական ո՛չ համբոյրի, այլ լոկ պաչի՜.

Որ չգիտեմ, թե ինչպէս ես դու կարօտել,
Երբ որ քսան-քսանհինգն ես թողել ետև:

Թո՛ղ որ, անգի՜ն, հանդիպել եմ ես քեզ այնժամ,
Երբ դու արդէն անկարող ես ապրել բաժան.

Քո անցեալից, անցած կեանքից, որ առանց ինձ
Դու ապրել ես կա՛մ այլոց հետ, կա՛մ առանձին:

Թո՛ղ որ այդպէս,- ուշացել եմ թող գարունից,
Բայց աւելի քիչ չի թովում աշունը ինձ:

Ինչո՞վ է լաւ արշալոյսը մայրամուտից,
Աշնան յասմիկն ինչո՞վ է վատ գարնան պուտից:

Չէ՜, աւելի՛ն. երբ աշխարհում օրն է մարում,
Ծաղիկները շատ աւելի սուր են բուրում…

I AM NOT LATE

Translated by Dora Sakayan

Am I late? So what, my dear! I couldn’t care less
If I had never known your real maiden grace.

If I am unaware how your smile had been
When you were young, when you turned sixteen.

So what if I missed your first maiden kiss!
Even your peck is for me such bliss.

And if I ignore how you were in tears,
When you marked your twenty or twenty-five years.

So what, my dear, if we meet today,
When you can no longer simply walk away

From your past, when I was unknown,
When you lived with others or you were alone.

Never mind if I am late for your life’s spring,
When even your fall no less joy can bring.

How is sunrise more than when nights unfold?
How is late jasmine less than spring’s marigold?

Moreover, my darling, just before dusk,
Flowers boast a scent sweeter than musk…

ՄԻԱՆԳԱՄԻՑ

Ասում են, թէ միանգամից կեանքում ոչի՜նչ չի կատարւում.
Միանգամից ո՛չ մի կարպետ եւ ո՛չ մի գորգ չի պատռւում,
Միանգամից բերդ չի շինւում ու չի քանդւում միանգամից,
Միանգամից ձիւն չի գալիս եւ չի փչում անգամ քամին:
Մի՛րգ չի հասնում միանգամից, ո՜ւր մնաց թէ՝ խելօքանան,
Զո՛յգ չեն կազմում միանգամից, ու՜ր մնաց թէ՝ երեքանան:
Միանգամից չեն կշտանում եւ չեն զգում ջրի կարիք.
Ո՛չ այսօրն է անցեալ դառնում, ո՜չ էլ վաղն է դառնում գալիք:

Այս ամէնը ճիշտ է, հարկա՛ւ,
Հենց այսպէս է, ինչպէս որ կայ:
Սակայն եթէ իմ կեանքի մէջ գէթ հարցնէին մի՛ անգամ ինձ,
Թէ ես ի՞նչ եմ գերադասում,
Ի՞նչ եմ ուզում
Ու երազում,
Ես կասէի.
- Ինչ լինում է՝ թող որ լինի միանգամի՛ց…

ALL AT ONCE

Translated by Dora Sakayan

They say nothing happens instantly in life,
No carpet or tapestry wears out all at once,
No fortress is built in an instant, nor torn down in another,
The snow doesn’t fall all at once, nor does the wind blow at once.
Fruits do not ripen, much less do people grow wise all at once,
Men and women don’t become couples, much less families all at once,
In an instant no hunger is sated and no thirst is ever slaked,
Today doesn’t turn past, nor does tomorrow turn future at once.
All of this is certainly true,
That’s just the way it is.
But if anyone should ever ask me once,
What would I prefer,
What would I desire,
And to what would I aspire,
I would say:
– Whatever happens, let it happen at once…

by Catherine Fletcher

So, 2012 looks like it’s going to be an important year for Armenian literature. It’s been declared the Year of the Armenian Book, and Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, is UNESCO’s Book Capital this year. Tell us a bit about what’s afoot in Armenian poetry and what you’re up to with the Armenian Poetry Project.

A few years back, several individuals and institutions approached UNESCO because 2012 marks the 500^th anniversary of the publication of the first Armenian book. As a result there are several interesting events organized in Armenia and the diaspora. The Armenian Catholic Mekhitarist Monks in Venice organized an exhibit worthy of a New York Times review which was entitled The Key to Armenia’s Survival. Closer to home, the Library of Congress has put together an exhibit and catalogue commemorating this anniversary set to open in April. Considering that the last Kingdom of Armenia was in the 14^th century and the first Republic was in the early years of the 20^th century, this is a major accomplishment. We were the tenth nation to start publishing books.

The Armenian Poetry Project is dedicated to modern and contemporary poetry, so we will not commemorate in the same fashion, as the early books and manuscripts contained few poems (some pagan poetry and medieval writers’ works have survived), and the modern vernacular is very different, but I will of course commemorate this historical event and mention celebrations as they occur. A few months ago I started a new series on out of print and hard to get books. This year marks the sixth anniversary of the Project, and the third annual poetry writing competition co-sponsored by the Armenian Students’ Association of Rhode Island will be announced in Fall 2012. The site will post the winning entries.

My introduction to Armenian literature came in the form of several translated poems by Daniel Varoujian and Siamanto in Carolyn Forché’s anthology Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. What was poetry in Armenian—both Western and Eastern—like at the beginning of the 20^th century?

Sometime in the middle of the 19^th century, there was a great shift from Classical Armenian (Grabar/Krapar) to using the modern vernacular (Ashkharapar) in literature. Many of the topics in this era were laments for Armenia, about Christianity – some by authors who were secular –and love poems. These poems rhymed and had stanzas but didn’t use the form of the medieval Hayrens, an Armenian form of 4 line 15 syllable stanzas, or the Antouni, the poems dealing with life in exile, which had evolved from the Armenian troubadour poems. The authors in the 19^th and 20^thcenturies had access to European literature – in fact, the educated class was French speaking –and many translated into Armenian their favorite poets. Siamanto and Varoujan were both from Constantinople, one of two major literary hubs; the other was Tiflis (Tiblisi) the capital of Georgia. Until 1915, these two intellectual milieus produced many authors. Poetry, theater, and operas were created, as well as architecture and music… If one visits the Armenian graveyards, one sees the graves of prominent artists and intellectuals in these cities.

And then in 1915—

In 1915, the intellectuals and leaders were put in prison and sent to their deaths. Only a few, such as Hagop Oshagan (1883–1948) and Vahan Tekeyan (1878-1948), escaped the atrocities; in fact, Tekeyan amongst others had left Constantinople during the time of the 1896 persecutions. These intellectuals and writers ended up in the Middle East or Europe for the most part, where they continued publishing and creating. The loss however was great, and a century later, Western Armenian is a language in decline, and as per UNESCO, endangered.

You and I have talked previously about the different Armenian communities around the world—in Armenia, Turkey, Lebanon, France, North America… Let’s start with the literary community in Istanbul after the genocide.

Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) has a community of vibrant authors. In the 20^th century, it produced prominent poets such as Zahrad (1924-2007), Zareh Khrakhouni (1926- ), Irma Ajemian (1936-1990), Ikna Sariaslan (1945- ), and others.

Zahrad came to be one of the most significant of a new generation of poets who were advocating a less lyrical approach. What was different about his style and the themes of his poems?

Zahrad celebrates the individual, including the simple man, the loser. He celebrates life’s small accomplishments, everyday simple tasks of cleaning lentils, and his city coming alive. He uses simple everyday language, and likes to play with words. For example, he has a series of poems numbered 1 through 10; in another he takes a word or symbol (like a triangle) and writes a series on this theme. One series is simply called Nice things. Objective Symbolism “առարկայական խորհրդապաշտութիւն” , as per my research, stems from existentialism and Bergsonian philosophy. The core authors Zahrad, Khrakhouni, and their lyrical friends Ikna Sariaslan and Vart Shigaher (1926-) both of whom were practicing doctors, worked together at Marmara, the Armenian daily newspaper published in Istanbul which just celebrated its 71^st birthday. While Zahrad’s work uses simplicity, Khrakhouni uses length, complexity and symbolism.

What about the Eastern community in Soviet Armenia? What challenges did writers experience under the Soviet regime?

Authors in the Soviet era were greatly supported, and Yerevan, the modern day capital of Armenia, has boulevards named after them and commemorative sculptures all over the city. If one researches authors between World War I and World War II, the Soviet Armenian authors, such as Parouyr Sevak (1924-1971), Silva Kaputikyan (1919-2006), and Hovhannes Shiraz (1915-1984), who was Kaputikyan’s husband, Yeghishe Charentz (1897-1937), Gevork Emin (1918-1998) were still in print and widely known at the beginning of this century; Shiraz was widely translated in the former Soviet Union by poets such as Arseny Tarkovsky. Yevgeny Yevtushenko has written about both G. Emin and H. Shiraz. Emin’s work was known by African students. Charents’ picture is on a banknote in Armenia, and his work was translated in the early days of the 20th century by Valeri Bryusov, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Arseny Tarkovsky, and Louis Aragon. Not so for the authors in the West, especially those who wrote in Armenian.

Tell us about Menk magazine and the community in France?

Menk—meaning “We”—were the authors who had settled in Paris and its surrounding areas after World War I and the Genocide. The group founders in 1931 were Nigoghos Sarafian (1902-1972), Chahan Chahnour (1903-1974), Zaréh Vorpouni (1902-1980), Chavarch Nartouni (1898-1969), and Vazkèn Chouchanian (1902-1941). Friends also contributed to this review, which had only a few issues yet became a crucial group. Their goal was to create a new literary tradition, in the diaspora. Menk published a manifesto in the first volume that advertised the group’s desire to break free of tradition, which according to Bardakjian’s A Reference Guide to Modern Armenian Literature – 1500-1920, was far modest in tone that the earlier Mehean – a short lived periodical established in Constantinople before the Genocide, – and, Ahegan in 1960s Beirut.

After several decades in France, Sarafian became the only one of his peers who persisted in writing in Armenian; other writers disappeared into the Francophone literary sphere. As a poet who writes in Western Armenian as well as English, what thoughts do you have about Sarafian’s experience?

I find it amazing that Sarafian and Harout Gosdantian (1909-1979) persisted for so many years in writing in Armenian. I admire them greatly. I often discuss this issue with my contemporaries who, although fluent in Armenian, prefer to write in English. I believe they wish to be read and be included in the canons of contemporary English literature. My experience has been interesting, while I write in both English and Armenian, it’s my Armenian work that has received wider attention. I am published in Armenian journals and anthologies and was invited to an international poetry festival where they prefer to hear work in their original language. I suppose I have been fortunate.

There’s been a flurry of translation from Armenian into English recently. In the fall, Diana Der-Hovanessian published a new anthology of 20th century work, Armenian Poetry of Our Time; Christopher Atamian published the first English translation of Sarafian’s prose poem, The Bois de Vincennes; a complete volume of Zahrad’s poetry was translated into English by Sosi Antikacioglu while selections of Sevak’s work were published by Jack Atamian and are forthcoming this year from Dora Sakayan. What do you make of all this?

Regarding translations: the more the merrier. We need our contemporaries to know the work of these superb authors and readers around the world to meet us, finally. My hope is that the 2012 Year of the Book in Armenia brings forth a new opportunity to get to know Armenian authors, through these new translations and new publications.

by Catherine Fletcher. Co-edited by Lola Koundakjian.

ARTWORK: Family (2008), by Hagop Hagopian, courtesy of the artist, http://www.hagopianart.com

The years from 1915 to 1921 were the turning point in modern Armenian history. During 19th century Ottoman and Russian domination, Armenians experienced a cultural revival and increasing nationalistic leanings, stirred by their intellectual community and increased literacy. In 1915, on the eve of the First World War, Turkish nationalist reformers responded by rounding up 250 writers and intellectuals in the Western community and began what is now known as the Armenian Genocide. In the East, amid the power struggles of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Democratic Republic of Armenia formed. The republic came to a quick end, however, when it was annexed by Soviet invasion in 1921.

Exile was not new to Armenians and goes back to the eighth and ninth centuries according to the Armenian writer Vahé Oshagan. But for the more than a million Armenians who were displaced by these events, both the scope of the emigration and the trauma that accompanied it were unprecedented.

For Nigoghos Sarafian (1902-1972), the first of three poets profiled here, this phenomenon of exile meant a new Western Armenian language and new poetic forms must be created. Thirteen at the beginning of the Genocide, he escaped to France, where he made this reinvention his project. His work is characterized by crisp language and a keen expression of sensation. Whether journeys to the sea or meditations on a Paris park, Sarafian’s poems included are both lyrical and anguished, with shifting perspectives and convey the experiences of a man meeting himself.

Born after the upheaval of the First World War, Paruyr Sevak (1924 – 1971) lived most of his life in Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia. Though a member of the party-sanctioned literary community, Sevak’s individuality and frequent “ideological deviation” got him into trouble with the authorities. Sevak’s subjects ranged from a challenge to the computers of the world to his beloved Sulamita to the commemoration of the Genocide. He used traditional forms such as the ghazal while, as translator Dora Sakayan has noted, also being known for inventing compound words and new turns of phrase in Eastern Armenian. The poems here focus on interpersonal relationships and reveal the quality that appears again and again in his work: his humanity.

Zahrad (1924– 2007), a Western Armenian poet who was born and lived in Istanbul, saw the end of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st. His poems often celebrate that city and depict observations and reflections from its daily life: an encounter between a woman and an awkward man in an elevator, a woman cleaning lentils, his surprise at his admiration for his wife of many years. His language is deceptively simple and his tone wry; other poems, including his Gigo cycle, reveal an absurdist view. During his early years as a poet, Zahrad’s style ran counter to literary fashion with his poems of short, unrhymed lines. By the end of his life, his modernist experiments had significantly reshaped Armenian poetry in Istanbul.

Modern Armenian poetry is subject to a world of influences and highly diverse. This brief selection of poems, along with the interview with the Armenian Poetry Project’s Director Lola Koundakjian, offers a sampling of the richness of that writing in this Year of the Armenian Book.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The editors wish to thank the following for their assistance with research and translations: Christopher Atamian, Diana Der-Hovanessian, John Greppin, Dora Sakayan, and the Zohrab Center.

I may

not have

the time

for all

of this

but A) I

enjoy the

slap of

my flipflops

on the stair

& though my

name is

not Roxanne

I remember

when I

would’ve liked

that like

a girl playing

witch in

her yard

with jars

& spider

webs & the

world was

misty. A)

almost took

it all.

Even if I’m

not Roxanne

I know

you liked

my voice

in the

dark &

I did too

B) Rabbits

like to be

up and around

at twilight

& dusk ex-

actly when

I get

scared

Did stripes

come from

any place

else in nature

but a changing

sky & a

sad parent

fills a

room & before

a child can

think she

feels it

too. C) The

Tree. There

was a moment

of light

before I

got in the

car. The

tree was

that green

that holds

up the

procession

of this.

It is the

world.

D) And now

I will drive

home. I

looked at

a lamppost

just for

a sec.

Could Eileen

ever be

Roxanne?

No.

Your House

I’ve walked past your childhood several
times
and friends of mine babysat
your friends. The enormous calm
this morning kernals
flowing through my clenched
fist into
an old fashioned milk bot-
tle exactly I’ve
constructed that time, I thought
waves, wooden ones
no flames. As
a good middle
I climb on top
and then politely
move over. I was sexually
abused by an
entire house
every shake of the building
was my lover
me abandoning you from not noticing
me. Eating alone
for years
in my family
not putting my foot
down but not picking it
up either. Suddenly strong
in the new presumed
position. Wider than
no more private
than yes. Everyone’s with
men all of
a sudden men made
like my time
in the morning didn’t
choke the limits
of the bottle
can leave me
in satiety.
Not safety
something more
native Listen
to me going all horny. Play
lover, play.

I told my
therapist
about the fire
I guess in New York
they told the landlord
there were
five of them
but there
was eleven
practically
all of them
died
there was
a picture
of one woman
crying
some were
her kids
it’s impossible
to know
where the fray
of bright
red cloth
came from
on the grass
if the power’s
off for a second
it’s fun
better is the
second it all
starts coming
on, fans
whirring
radio
everything

we landed ourselves
on a grassy
slope with
a view of the
freeway

the rushing sound
of it
her familiar
black back
with the shaved
part around
her ass

a hot spot
her white muzzle
turns, watching

guiding her away
from the
family with
my knee
coffee in
my hand
on the telephone

the family watch
their baby tiny
in red
wandering

prey for
my dog
I feed
her treats
guide
her to another
angle

surely it’s layered
the skin of day
chirping
Fanny you’re
maternal
well I have
three kids
they told me to
talk to Jesus

which I thank
for my interiority
they told me
to guard Jesus
for one
full hour
in which
I began to
seize time
by waiting
the bird is like
something you
squeeze, squeaking
give us facts
my home
never burned
and I’m one
the loss
would be minor
how big would
I get as
I turn the
pages
measuring the
size of the
dead
I follow
her shaking head
next quarter
I intend
to teach them
everything

whereas this
quarter I taught
them to
grow up in a mess
I did
the year is
new

No Excuse

The crows
were never here

I don’t remember them
and you could
put your hand in the water
& hit a fish or two

now you gotta
go look.

She was the first one from
India to outer space.

I don’t remember
those trees
and I don’t remember
it being so hot

but winter used to be
really cold
You remember that.
I know to hold back
tends to keep the thing
going but I don’t

I like it kind of square
all there.
We played the reading
at Gallery 6
maybe it was his
description of it.
We read it
in class

some things get saved.
I like to return.

I like the farmer
who studied science
came home
and made it work

He was Japanese.
He stabbed himself right
in the chest. Like
Elliot, not Kurt.

The two kinds
of death are different.

Of all the songs
you ever wrote
you wrote some

guy in the airport
read about farming
he had big thick thighs
and he looked like a businessman
and that’s what farmers
look like today.

He was trying to get better. To improve
his lot

this immense restlessness on the
plane

remembering Rae
thought the birds had changed

and something else

and Peter said the fish
were practically everywhere
and now they’re not.

I don’t know myself
and that’s a sin.

Your Name

It’s very hard
to hunt
from indoors
I’ll say that for
you. And
text is
at best
an attenuated
warning
sound has
a range
of many desires
not just map.
I subscribe
to the grandpa
bunny bunny school
of theory
I mean genesis
to write
is a form
of accounting
& approximate
promise
in the sunny
mouth of
time. A horny
bet. Or else
hunters
lolling around the fire
what did you
get. How can
I avoid it.
This “making
a speech.” Long limbed
& maybe
in July. Aren’t
we lucky to have
captured each
other in this
hideous neon light.

by Eileen Myles

My house was about seventy acres. There was a maze of bushes with blackberries on them that squirreled around the pond. Me and Rose would play Minotaur and hero – I was always the hero, she was always the Minotaur and invariably we wound up in the woods. It was truly easy to get lost in these winding trails, but having nothing else to do I developed a knack for their twists and turns and for a very long time well a couple of months I was content to push daily through these itchy furrows, craning my head from time to time to spot the white bird house, a bird mansion, on a tall stick that indicated the direction I had come from. Someone had given the birds a house as least as good as the people’s. It was a very in-joke.

If all went well I arrived in the woods — plowed through a ring of them, not so wide, then arriving in the upper meadow which was an occasion to rejoice with Rosie who would throw herself down in the bright green grass and roll and I would then turn around in all directions to grin and admire it all and think look where I am. Sometimes we’d break out from the woods into the grass to find a couple of bright young deer leaping along the opposite edges of the forest. She’d go leaping afterwards. The whole Pennsylvania adventure was a disorienting one for me vis-à-vis my dog since she was like an old friend you go traveling with only to realize she is fluent in several languages she never mentioned to you before. With the deers she also began to perform these kind of sprung leaps through the deep grass, a kind of swimming, it seemed. When she stood in the woods for the first time and heard something and stopped abruptly and stood still. She then bent her right paw in an animal salute to the hunt, to attention. C’mon Rose you’re from New York, where d’you learn that. Instead she was deaf and dumb to all that she had known before. She was another dog. I gave her a native name: Pasquati. And when I changed her I changed myself. I took my shirt off and I simply became no one, no name, no sex, just alive moving across the land with a dog. Art brought me this.

The period during which I had unlimited access to the house and the land was about two years but felt much longer. I had friends come to stay once in a while but to maintain the illusion of timelessness and infinite space I was mostly alone writing pages and pages of novels and poems making a fire talking on the phone, watching every movie Pasolini ever made, and the Dali Lama – just a hair each night (he spoke of “refuge”) while I was lying in the grand bed, also reading Deleuze’s great book, Masochism.

He said the masochist habitually lays out a story, a fetischized chain of objects or events, which the seeker must thoroughly immerse herself in in order to reach the unexposed but desired conclusion. Which was . . .

A myth got built in my time at the house. That there was a perfect way to be and a perfect way to write. I woke every morning, kind of early, eight and began to drink coffee and read. In those mornings I read Manuel De Landa’s War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, which explained through a careful analysis of the history of explosives how an engine (and a general, like Napoleon) capitalizes on inherent differences in order to build a story chaotically. I read the thick emphatic sentences of Lucia Berlin. I read swift little Neuromancer. I read every day till I was full – and anxious, which took a little less than an hour. Alone a person begins to know herself like a clock. I was a 43-year old calendar of shifting desire that summer. Do other women notate their cycle, imagining themselves not an open plain exactly but a pond, not enclosed so much as focused in a way so that the shifting density of my itch, my urge, like a radio station of sex or fertility was now on this setting or that. In some quiet completely absorbing way I read me every day, especially when I was reading. I read my tone which altered along the slope of the month and it would inform me when the reading must end and I couldn’t bear my body anymore in its fake agreement with my mind, the body then vaulting over the mind’s walls. I got up from my lounge chair in the front yard and swiftly tugged on my running clothes.

Rosie was young, 2-years old, so she came along for the forty-minute gallop two laps around our estate. Up the dirt road, down the paved hill, Round Hill Road, along the shady tree-lined street where other houses peaked out behind the leaves, people to have sex with I wondered, and finally up a back road onto our land again. And birds watched us, a few dogs and always the hen and her chicks. I’d do it once, then again. One morning when I started out I saw up in the sky something that resembled an old set-in fan that had removed cooking odors and smoke from the kitchen I grew up in. Now that fan was turning in the sky. I felt dizzy watching the tiny spiral of blades flickering and I thought I am going to die — not today — but exactly like this. My insides will cast a whirling image for me to concentrate on — my heart or something even older, failing. My light. I named it all – the trees, the road, the frightening fan — the undiscovered country – which yielded a tiny poem I could never get right — the tenses always at odds, but it really happened. I saw my death in the sky.

Running was followed by sitting. I wasn’t a buddhist or anything. I just created a pile of pillows, set the clock and meditated on everything as little as possible for half an hour. It felt good after the run, though usually I was starving and sat there on my pillow thinking about food. Shredded wheat and bananas, a huge portion, which I quickly devoured after the alarm rang and with a tiny prayer I sat down to write. The whole process took two or three hours and if any element of it were protracted or removed, I not so much couldn’t write, but didn’t trust my day’s work which just had a lousy feeling. Cause on top of everything, I wanted my writing to feel good and for that one summer it mostly always did. It’s an impossible standard, but I was actually there once.

My joke about the room I wrote in was that it looked like Goethe’s studio. In college I wanted to study Spanish but the line was long so I wound up studying German. By the second year we were already reading entire books. Werther was our first. To read The Sorrows of the Young Werther in the original German when you’re young — if you were young like I was young. Well, I was just fucked. My incessant longing was now validated by the genius of the past. Even later when Frank O’Hara took pot shots at yearning in his famous essay Personism I felt like well he’s just being old-fashioned.

The summer I lived in the house I was actually part of a reading tour organized by Semiotext(e) that brought us to Goethe’s home, in Weimar.

Our host, Sasha Anderson, was a small dirty guy in leather jeans and sandals with an illustrious girlfriend — Rheinheld — long flowing blonde hair and her family had a barbecue for us in their vineyard. Millions of sausages were smoking away on a vast outdoor grille. Sylvere, who was Jewish — I think everyone was on the tour except me, but Sylvere had barely escaped the Holocaust as a child and at the barbecue he was having fits. On the whole tour, really. Some Jews can go to Germany but not Sylvere. And one by one, during the barbecue, we were led away alone into a small library and told by the cameraman and his friends to sit on a stool in front of a wall of decrepit gilded books. A light shone right in my eyes. The moment had come. I was being interviewed by German teevee.

How do you like Goethe? Do people in America think much about Goethe. I was actually very excited to answer the questions of the cameraman and his friends but it was my discomfort and ignorance that they wanted. My American stupidity. My knowledge was not of great interest to them. People don’t care I told them. They nodded knowingly.

Goethe’s studio was one of the rooms we got to peek into — across a rope. I remember his big black carriage filling the garage, his serene private garden out back and the great classical busts of his men friends that punctuated the house’s furnishings but I actually don’t remember the study. Who’s asking these questions anyhow. I think a poet’s study is just an idea. Wherever I’m writing, it is.

In Bellfast my studio had extremely high ceilings with wooden beams and stark white stucco walls and large windows onto the front. The room was in fact the summer kitchen. It’s a landmark German farmhouse, a little gem Eden said. It cost us a million bucks. It was sort of cool that she told me.

Faye and Laurie visited once most of the writing was done. I had been alone for a couple of months and they broke the ice. I remember walking to greet them as they got out of their car. How can I explain that the house was situated on grass and you walked up the slope from the house still on the ubiquitous greenness and now the two of them were standing outside of their car, which they had parked on grass and I felt like a Martian floating out of my ship. I guess cause they were seeing me. To write you get really alone. Now I had the sensation of having just landed or was dwelling in the softest space. It was this insane country living. Rarely does a lesbian, not this lesbian — rarely had I ever felt this cool. I was wearing this green shirt and my hair had grown into some condition of excess. Kind of Wildean, I thought. I was part of this place, and now was even the host of my friends’ enjoyment. We all wanted female artists to look and feel this well. It was that rare narcissistic moment — a rousing pleasure for all of us. Coming up from my estate I greeted my guests. I showed them my pile of manuscript and later I think Faye cooked – oh she brought food and Laurie was just kind of wild and generous, everyone was.

My dog’s snoring. And it’s pouring outside right now. I enjoy thinking back. It wasall so perfect.

Until recently – maybe this summer or the last one — I have been trying to return to that perfection of feeling, setting and — because the only virginity I am really familiar with is the past. And, happily, the one unambivalent fact of getting older is I don’t still want that place, or any place anymore. It’s a realization I can trace like the growth of an idea.

Take the time that him and I had sex. It was a poet friend, many years ago. He didn’t fuck me but he had his hand way up inside and acknowledging that I was a lesbian he proclaimed what a waste. I thought what is so special about this cunt but I also I thought how great that it’s special. He wanted to fuck me and I knew for sure in that moment that I would become pregnant. It was why he was admiring my cunt. He felt it was his. If it was mine his feeling was wasted. Without thinking too much about it I enjoyed being wasted for him.

Like a spilt glass of milk, my life. A white pool shimmering on the floor. My corrupt womanhood: A waste. I feel the same way about being a writer. Staying up all night burning my brain cells, for years, swallowing tons of cheap speed, also for years, eating poorly, pretty much drinking myself to death. And then not. Contracting whatever std came to me in the seventies, eighties, nineties, smoking cigarettes, a couple a packs a day for at least twenty years, being poor and not ever really going to the doctor (only the dentist: flash teeth), wasting my time doing so little work, being truly dysfunctional, and on top of that, especially my point, being a dyke, in terms of the whole giant society, just a fogged human glass turned on its side. Yak yak yak a lesbian talking. And being rewarded for it. Not only wasted, but useless, rancid, a wreck. It has come to me slow. Ten years ago Jane De Lynn said let’s face it, Eileen, we are ruined. She didn’t mean by some romantic sadness. She meant in fact. Jane’s a little older. I wasn’t ruined yet.

Jane had a good education, Iowa, Barnard. She may’ve fucked up, but she’s basically rich. I mean she may’ve been ruined earlier for some of these same reasons – and privilege of course will make a person rot . . . look at men. Nothing good there. But probably she was just being contrary or ironic. Or wanted to tell me that I was ruined and didn’t think I could handle it alone. I was actually pretty hard working and nervous in my forties and still thought it was possible to be good, to get it right, to win.

Nope, I am destroyed. A shattered boat of a person. A broken window here, a lousy bell there. An old crappy dyke with half a brain leaking a book. A drippy excrescence. A schmear.

I read a long time ago about a man who seemed normal but when he died they performed an autopsy (why do they always perform an autopsy if he was so normal?) they discovered his brain was just this little piece – the part that connects the left to right — he had only that. Like a headband. The doctors couldn’t imagine how the guy lived and functioned, never mind thought. It made me shiver. I felt that could be me. Not only wasted but partial. A blur on the handle. I wrote the first chapter of this book, my fucking inferno, and New York blew up. If I died tomorrow I could really care less. I’d be relieved. Look at me: My face is an old catcher’s mitt. Blam. Thunk. Reactions and dents. A cold bent lighthouse. Brrr. A melancholy lava lamp. A woman. A man. A butch. A bitch. Rots of ruck. Watching the fragments float by for years. I’m done. . . H’wo.

It’s me.

By Edwin Torres

What an ear on Eileen Myles— to not only uncover, but to capture the underlying truth out of the simplest phrase. The hardest thing to do for a poet, to mine and unearth the gems that move us. And if that’s the definition of what it means to be a poet, then she is a poet’s poet. Before identity interferes with the words we have the voice, the singular infinite whose job it is to reveal. Eileen’s singular voice cuts through clutter with a profound sense of place. I always get a sense of honor from her work, as if she understands her being as a vessel is to get out of her own way. That she’s able to dissappear like that while presenting such a powerful focal point, is why she resonates across such a wide spectrum. Through the writing of course…but also the form, the line break, we get to the underlying truth, the world revealed.

I want to leave my introduction at this point, let the work speak for itself. It was a great experience to collect the pieces for Rattapallax…revisiting her work is a humbling reminder for clarity. Stacy Szymasek’s interview uses the interwoven engine of Leslie Scalapino to bring us current, from Eileen’s time as director of the Poetry Project to the ‘real’ America back to breath again. And CA Conrad’s essay summarizes beautifully the Myles arc: a never-starting geometric that passes through staccato id from the perspective of another brilliant poet who happens to be a lifelong fan, and whose life was indeed saved by Eileen’s poetry. Thank you Stacy and CA…and Eileen, for your work and for participating in Rattapallax’s online debut.

computer

I’m not even a boat
I’m where a boat
crashed
I put my impossible
body in your hands
is this a pen

To My Class

I’m trying

to figure

out what

kind of fucked

up flower

a reflection

is

when everything

dances

in a bowl

of aluminum

day’s on

no extra

light

just the color

scheme

of the gym

& thinking

about that

the tile is that

exact

shade which

is not quite

white

they chose

it and it’s

why the

feeling is not

exact

I’ve got

to lie

down

on the mat

to see

the frond

peeping

through

the

window

sitting up there’s

too much

a bending plant

a grille
the whole

life of

the gym

not the tiny

crop

like sitting in a

Muslim

restaurant

and the cow

peeps in

like that

I’m trying to

sort

out a

few things

at this

exact

moment

in my life

something

more

marvelous

than a category

the body

place is

a thinking

place

a surprise

here

a day isn’t

a bookshelf

unless it’s

the endless

process

of

pulling one

down

and hours or

years

later

putting it back

up for

some other reason

among its

new friends

I don’t really

need

glasses

to write

but I squint

and gradually

that grows

unfamiliar