Saturday, July 07, 2012

Michael E. Stone: Grigor’s Name


The monastery is gone,
except for parts
cut out of bedrock.

A cistern,
deep and dark,
raised stone edge,
round mouth,
no cover now.

Crumbling white mosaic,
missing partly,
frames for designs
marked but empty.

Grigor left his name
in coloured stones,
at the cistern’s edge.

Hot, sun burns,
desert spreads below,
all the way to the Jordan
and the road to Jericho,
past Euthymius’ lavra
at the Red Khan.

May 2009, Jerusalem

Monday, July 02, 2012

Celebrating the publication of Armenian Poetry of Our Time


Sunday, July 22nd, 2012 at 4pm



Celebrating the publication of Armenian Poetry of Our Time

with

DIANA DER-HOVANESSIAN, translator
and other poets reading in English


VICTORIA AVETISYAN, soprano, Boston Lyric Opera
and
YEGHISHE MANUCHARYAN, tenor, Metropolitan Opera
singing in Armenian

Longfellow National Historic Site, East Lawn
105 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA

Sunday, July 01, 2012

Helene Pilibosian: Á LA COURBET


The Armenian language
did its line dance
while melding with Marseilles,
its alphabet shimmering
like 39 placemats
in gold or silver,
depending on fact
and weather in Gardanne.

The Armenian language
informed us of aunts
with silvered hair,
of an immigration
that was the foundation of a home,
of meeting open markets
with rabbits hung
on rungs of the practical turn.

The Armenian language
spoke its embrace,
heaved a sigh
for what was
and what could have been,
gave its enunciations
to some craggy tales,
then let us go on.

This poem was appeared in G. W. Review