Book Event in Los Angeles: Alec Ekmekji's book lauch at ABRIL bookstore

Celebrating World Poetry Day!

Abril Bookstore invites you to meet

ALEC EKMEKJI 

author of the newly released book

BENEATH THE GLASS BELL

Author will be introduced by SHAHE MANKERIAN

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019 - 7:30PM

ABRIL BOOKSTORE 

415 E. Broadway, Glendale, CA 91205

Admission is Free. For more information, call (818) 243-4112.

BENEATH THE GLASS BELL is Alec Ekmekji’s first published book of poetry, where he writes about a wide range of subjects that include music, painting, desire, mortality, other poets, and women. Proceeds from the book will go towards the empowerment and improvement of the lives of women in Armenia. This release event will coincide with World Poetry Day.

ALEC EKMEKJI was born in Aleppo, and immigrated to the United States in 1966. He is a graduate of UCLA, holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics, and worked as an engineer in the aerospace industry. Currently he is retired, continues to write poetry, and translates Armenian poetry into English. His most recent translations appeared in the Absinthe: A Journal of World Literature in Translation, published by the University of Michigan.

One Hundred Plus Words

Three Armenian writers -- Alec Ekmekji, Alina Gharabegian and Shahé Mankerian --  have been composing in a small writing group together for years by borrowing inspiration from one another read their creative work composed in approximately one-hundred-word lyrical pieces. Many of these are interlinked--one writer's piece leaning interestingly on another's style, borrowing from his images, appropriating his words and phrases, reworking another's symbol, while his own are likewise borrowed and wrought anew.

Tuesday, May 17 at 7:30 PM

Abril Books

415 E Broadway, Ste 102, 

Glendale, California 91205

Alec Ekmekji: On Ravel’s String Quartet

There is a place

Under your skin

Where hides a pizzicato violin.

In your belly

Swims a cello;

I pull your hair and make a bow.

Inside your throat

A viola crawls;

The bow thrashes on palace walls.

 White fingers wait

 Behind taut lips;

 They smell of freshly wetted whips.

The viola coils,

The cello stings,

And I am entangled in the strings

Of your pizzicato violin.

Alec Ekmekji

This poem appears by kind permission of the author.

Alec Ekmekji: Just like that

Click here for the audio segment of Alec Ekmekji's Just Like That read by Lola Koundakjian.

Just like that
he found a girl,
he found a riverbank,
just like that
she lay her back
on the knowing grass,
just like that
he found her lips
he found her buttoned blouse,
just like that he married
he married someone else.
Now sometimes she sees him
at the riverbank,
looking for loose gold buttons
in the dew on the grass.




This poem has appread in BIRTHMARK, a bilingual anthology of Armenian-American poetry. Published by Open Letter, 1999.

Ճիշտ այդպէս
գտաւ աղջիկ մը,
գտաւ գետափ մը,
Ճիշտ այդպէս
աղջիկը պառկեցաւ
խոտին վրայ,
Ճիշտ այդպէս
գտաւ աղջկան շրթունքները,
գտաւ աղջկան կոճկուած շապիկը,
Ճիշտ այդպէս ամուսնացաւ,
ամուսնացաւ ուրիշի մը հետ։
Հիմա ան երբեմն կը տեսնէ զինք
գետափին,
ցրիւ ոսկէ կոճակներ փնտռելով
ցօղաթուրմ խոտին մէջ։

Translated by Vartan Matiossian

Alec Ekmekji: [Cool, the moon...]

Cool,
the moon I know knowingly glows
beneath my bare soles
as I gently step
step gently,
try to step gently
among craters.

But ancient pebbles
perforate the skin
and create craters
anew
that creep into the souls
of me and the moon and I wonder: why be a
fool?

Copyright Alec Ekmekji. This poem has appeared in Birthmark: A bilingual anthology of Armenian-American poetry, 1999.

Alec Ekmekji: Negotiation

Let's write together
No let's ride together.
Let's lie together
No let's fly together.
Let's live together
No let's leave together.
Let's love together
Yes, in any weather.



Copyright Alec Ekmekji. This poem has appeared in Birthmark: A bilingual anthology of Armenian-American poetry, 1999.

Alec Ekmekji: Her Bell of Glass

And to hear silence
she closes all her eyes,
she lies on bare grass
beneath a glass bell
in a field hushed by
winter's frozen light;
but a song gathers
at the tips of her eyes
to rhythms of dew
blooming into ice,
and through the sun's rays
on her bell of glass
she hears the tempest
gathering in the lungs
of the glass blower
sleeping in Murano.

© 1997 Alec Ekmekji

Alec Ekmekji: On Beethoven's Appassionata

When I enter heaven - and I will enter heaven -
It will be a heaven of my own making,
Unlike the heavens of fashionable men,
A heaven where the days extend beyond the years,
And where the minutes swallow the hours,
Where hourglasses, coated with hellish glaze,
Revel in the dance of the years minutes days.

And when I enter hell - yes, I will enter hell -
It will be a hell fashioned by my hands,
Unlike the hells of dispassionate men,
A hell where the minutes devour the days,
And where the hours hover above the years,
Where the heavenly sands, falling, in a daze,
Suspend in mid-air to kiss that hellish glaze.



© 1996 Alec Ekmekji