Live from the Bowery Poetry Club: Alan Semerdjian

Gartal and the Armenian Poetry Project are proud to release this audio clip recorded live at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City on April 2, 2010. Click to hear Alan Semerdjian’s  reading of his poem LUCKY.

for Diana Der Hovanessian

I thought of her at a blackjack table

with scarlet and midnight

chips at her side pondering

situations for two Armenians

looking sideways for each other,

writing poems during shuffles.

And how she wrote

Playing cards with an Armenian

is different

from playing cards with anyone

else.

almost desperately

before she crossed it out

and looked at me, silent

because when two Armenians

are quiet it’s not

that they’ve found enough to say.