Shahé Mankerian: Turkish Coffee with Mrs. Hovsepian

On my last visit, I decided
to wash my hands before joining
you at the coffee table.

In the bathroom bowl, the strainer
cupped a clump of white hair
and a morsel of bread.

I was tempted to reach
with my index and pick a souvenir.
Instead, from the brush on the counter,

I pulled a strand from a tangled
disarray of whiskers and placed it
in my wallet. Marguerite, I didn't know

what to make of the wet crumb,
the wafer. Your late husband
saw visions in the Syrian desert.

On bended knees, he drooled
on the sand and imagined
kneading the dirt into dough.


Shahé Mankerian, our winner for the adult category, is the Principal of the St. Gregory's A. & M. Hovsepian School, in Pasadena, CA. He tells us "Mrs. Marguerite Hovsepian (1915-2012) is the benefactor of Alfred & Marguerite Hovsepian School in Pasadena. She was the daughter of Ezra and Alice de Witz Schuknicht of New York. She was married to Alfred Hovsepian who was a genocide survivor. "

Sarah Abigail Stites: My Baby Sister

I wake suddenly.

My lips are cracked and caked 

With the salt of tears I shed in the night

And the saliva which oozed from my dozing mouth. 

My muscles are rigid as I draw my tongue 

Over the roughness of my lips, 

Tasting the iron tang of blood.

Yeraz?  I hear the faintness of my baby sister calling. Yeraz?  

From above, she knows the nightmare I have.

Although it has been years since the genocide, the sharp, stark images are there:

The mirage of the blazing, summer sun,

Clangs and cries, bleatings and brutality.

The sickening, cloying smell of rotting flesh

And blood fermenting in the sun. 

The leering faces of nameless tormenters. 

Panic.

My legs are lead. I cannot run. Not now. Papa is dead.

And there is Mama, heavy with child. 

Her hand extends toward mine. Yeraz, come!

There is subdued urgency in her voice. Has she accepted our fate?

But from the corner of my eye, a scintillation in the sky! A flash of silver!

In my child-like faith, I believe a prince in shining armor has come to our rescue.

My neck twists up toward the brazen sky, but it is then that the scimitar swings.

Mama’s pregnant belly rips from her body. 

Entrails twist and burn in my gut as my legs give way. 

I hover in space as rage races to support my skeletal form. 

My dove grey eyes, those soft eyes my papa called his dreamy orbs, harden to steel

And flash with the anger of the scimitar.  

I was seven then, but I could not remain a child anymore. 

For as I collapsed, the last thing burned on my retinas was something any girl of seven understands. 

Something that that same girl of seven, twenty years later, has still never forgotten.  

The loss of a human history, the loss of a life that never lived, the loss of a girl I would never know: 

The mangled flesh of my unborn baby sister. 

Sarah Abigail Stites, the winner in the College category, is a student at Grove City College, and is from 

Reston, VA. She is 18 years old and her mother's name is Mooshian. 

Hovig Manoyan: Sickly

Green Buddha on a fruit stand

with mangos, strawberries, bananas,

blueberries, apricots, lemons, and oranges.

On good days, the Buddha serves you politely,

hands you a pear. It's like farmer's market

with free coconut and pineapple drinks.

Today, Buddha prays to Brahmin

to take greenness away. He barfs

hairballs on your horrible, horrible fruit bowl.

Hovig Manoyan has received honorable mention in this year's poetry competition, in the student category. He is 11 years old and in 6th grade at St. Gregory Hovsepian School, Pasadena, CA

Shant Dickran: Summer

School is

                        out

             no more

h

o

m

e

w

o

r

k

            or tests

            just playing

                        ANYTHING

I want

            S

               U

                  M

                     M

                        E

                          R       is here--

And I'm excited!          

Shant Dickran has received honorable mention in this year's poetry competition, in the student category. He is 11 years old and in 6th grade at St. Gregory Hovsepian School, Pasadena, CA

Julien Ghouliance: Words

As I sat, you whispered,

"I hope you feel better."

What did you say?

Your words were suffocating.

I wasn't looking for comfort,

but your words were as loud

as a concert and as calming

as a fallen rainbow.

Julien Ghouliance has received honorable mention in this year's poetry competition, in the student category. He is 12 years old and in 7th grade at St. Gregory Hovsepian School, Pasadena, CA

Rachel Megan Maclean: On the Mount

someday we will climb Mount Ararat and the
remains of Noah's skiff will splinter into our
thumbs and the pads of our fingertips, our
knees will be rubbed red raw by her crags, but
after a week we will sit on her summit Masis and with
throbbing hands and patellae, we will weep over the
clip-winged sparrows and the village of Van where our family
once fashioned jewelry on an estate that lives in
the dreams that were only our grandmother's
faintest and fondest of memories

Mama was only thirteen when the slaughter
began, she sat on the granite wall with a beautiful
box, but her family couldn't bring everything, they had to
leave things behind for the terror to take: the goats
and the uncles and the bodies not yet things they could
call corpses riddled with hatred, stuffed with hearts still
clenched in their fists in their fear in their crumpling
rib cages, still wronged, everything was wrong...

Armenian children are not apples in their mother's
eyes-- we are yellow-orange apricots dried by the
sun and cradled in the palms of those who cradled
us in their tender, weeping wombs; I am my
mother's apricot, and my wrinkles crinkle beneath my
skin because the children of a genocide are from
their first scream, old, and Mom, you and I are remnants
of a place and time raped but we have never allowed
ourselves to die because between the eyes, the muzzle
of a gun is just a molehill and

when we climb Ararat, sweet mother of our grandmothers, we
will watch time tunnel back to Siran and Keghanoush
drawing water and grinning in the sun, and sitting on her
peak Masis, we will weep over the sparrows and the village and
the apricots wrinkled in the dirt, lost from their mother's
palms and spotted from the moisture of our tears:
              someday we won't be the only ones who remember.



Rachel Megan Maclean, the winner for the student category is from Northside High School, Roanoke, VA.
She is 17 years old and studies with Mrs. Sally McFall

Honourable mentions to:
Julien Ghouliance 7th grade
Shant Dikran, and Hovig Manoyan, both 6th grade.
St. Gregory Hovsepian School, Pasadena, CA

ASA Inc Sponsors "Arthur Halvajian Memorial" Armenian Poetry Project Competition

Armenian Students' Association of America, Inc.

333 Atlantic Avenue

Warwick, Rhode Island 02888

Tel: (401) 461-6114

Web: www.asainc.org

E-mail: asa@asainc.org

PRESS RELEASE

October 22, 2012

Contact: Nathalie Yaghoobian

E-Mail: asa@asainc.org

ASA INC SPONSORS "ARTHUR HALVAJIAN MEMORIAL" ARMENIAN POETRY PROJECT

COMPETITION

WARWICK, RI---The Armenian Students Association, Inc. (ASA Inc.) announced

this month that it will once again be sponsoring the Armenian Poetry Project's

annual writing competition. This is the third year that the ASA Inc. has

sponsored the annual competition and the first year that it is naming its

sponsorship in memory of Arthur Halvajian, a longtime member and trustee of

the ASA Inc who passed away in 2010. The 2012 competition opened October

1st, the start of Armenian cultural heritage month, and the deadline for

submissions is December 1, 2012. Competition winners will be announced in

February 2013.

"We are pleased to continue our support of the Armenian Poetry Project

and it is only fitting that we name our sponsorship in honor of Arthur

Halvajian who first built our relationship with the Project," said

Brian Assadourian, Chairman of the ASA, Inc. Board of Trustees.

The Armenian Poetry Project, led by Lola Koundakjian, is a research and

documentation site of 19th to 21st Century Armenian poets and poetry.

Whether it is through its website/blog, Facebook, or iTunes presence -

which features podcasts of recited works - the Project brings together

writers from all walks of life across the world.

The competition is open to individuals with one or more parents with at least partial Armenian heritage. All residents of the United States and Canada are invited to submit their

work, in English or Armenian (preferred) for the third annual competition.

Entries should be e-mailed to ArmenianPoetryProject@gmail.com with the

subject heading "Halvajian ASA/APP Poetry competition".  Individuals may

only submit one poem for the competition.

The competition groups submissions into three categories; students (ages

12-17), college age (ages 18-22), and adult (ages 23 and older). A top

prize will be awarded for each of the categories in the amounts of US $50

(students), $100 (college age), and $250 (adult).

Each poem submitted for the competition must be accompanied by the author's

full name, age, home address/telephone number, school name, and sponsoring

teacher's telephone number.  Those in the college age category need not

include a sponsoring teacher. Those in the adult category need not include

school information.

You can learn more about the Armenian Poetry Project by visiting

http://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com.

The Armenian Students' Association of America, Inc. encourages educational

pursuits by Armenians in America and the raising of their intellectual

standards, provides financial assistance in the form of scholarships to

deserving Armenian students, develops fellowship among them, cultivates in

them the spirit of service in the public interest, and acquaints them and

the entire American community with Armenian culture.