Rescheduled: Book launch and reading

 

Book Release and Poetry Reading with book signing and reception in-person 

for History of Forgetfulness by Shahé Mankerian

(Fly on the Wall Press, 2021)

Thursday, March 10th, 2022 at 7:00pm ET

Guild Hall | Armenian Diocese

630 2nd Ave, New York, NY

PLEASE NOTE: All attendees must provide proof of COVID vaccination

Readings by the author and NY area writers and scholars:

Nancy Agabian, Christopher Atamian,

Alina Gregorian, Alan Semerdjian,

Alina Gharabegian & Lola Koundakjian

Shahé Mankerian releases his critically-acclaimed debut collection, taking readers back to 1975 Beirut, where an un-civil war is brewing. 

Mankerian asks, “Who said war didn’t love / the children?” setting the tone for a darkly humorous collection in which memories of love, religion and childhood are entangled amongst street snipers and the confusion of misguided bombings.

For more information contact Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center

Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)

630 2nd Avenue | New York, NY 10016-4885

zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org

www.zohrabcenter.org

Shahé Mankerian’s debut poetry collection History of Forgetfulness book launch [postponed]

DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL, the event is postponed. WE WILL KEEP YOU POSTED.

Please join us for the Book Release & Poetry Reading of Shahé Mankerian’s debut poetry collection History of Forgetfulness with readings by NY area writers/intellectuals Nancy Agabian, Christopher Atamian, Alina Gregorian, Alan Semerdjian, Alina Gharabegian, & Lola Koundakjian

The Zohrab Center was established through the generous gift of Mrs. Dolores Zohrab Liebmann in memory of her parents, and dedicated on November 8, 1987 in the presence of His Holiness Vasken I (†1994), Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians;  and His Eminence Archbishop Torkom Manoogian (†2012), Primate of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. Liebmann’s father, Krikor Zohrab 1861-1915), was a renowned author, jurist, humanitarian and community activist in Constantinople, who was among the first Armenian intellectuals killed in the 1915 Genocide.

December 2, 2021  7:00pm ET 

at Zohrab Center

630 Second Avenue

New York, NY 10016-4885

ՅԻՇԷՔ Hishek: Armenian Writers on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

Tuesday, April 24 at 7 PM - 9 PM

Babycastles, 145 W 14th St, New York, New York 10011

🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲

Alina Gregorian
Christopher Atamian
Aida Zilelian
Lola Koundakjian

🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲

Alina Gregorian is a poet and artist, and author of the chapbooks Flags for Adjectives (Diez) and Navigational Clouds (Monk Books). Some poems can be found in Boston Review, Prelude, BOMB Magazine, among others. Alina lives in Brooklyn, NY and can be found here alinagregorian.com.

Christopher Atamian is a writer and creative producer of Armenian and Italian background and the grandson of Armenian Genocide survivors. He studied comparative literature as an undergrad at Harvard; television and film production at USC Film School and international marketing at Columbia Business School. Apart from creative endeavors and professional activities as a senior executive in leading media companies and consultancies (ABC, Ogilvy & Mather, Hill + Knowlton Strategies), Atamian has concentrated on community activism. He is the former President and a current board member of AGLA New York, and in 2004 founded Nor Alik, a non-profit cultural organization responsible for producing the First New York Armenian International Film Festival. Atamian also co-produced the OBIE Award-winning play Trouble in Paradise in 2006, as well as several music videos and short films. He was selected for the 2009 Venice Biennale on the basis of his video Sarafian’s Desire and received a 2015 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He continues to contribute critical pieces to leading publications such as The New York Times Book Review, The Huffington Post, SCENES Media and The Weekly Standard. His first book of poetry A Poet in Washington Heights was published this year by Nauset Press and awarded the 2017 Tölölyan Literary Prize. He was born and still resides in New York City with his dog Chip.

Aida Zilelian is a New York City writer. Her novel THE LEGACY OF LOST THINGS was released in March 2015 (Bleeding Heart Publications) and was the recipient of the 2014 Tololyan Literary Award. Her stories have been published in over twenty-five journals and several anthologies. She has been featured on NPR, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Kirkus Reviews, among other radio and print platforms. She is also the curator of Boundless Tales, the longest-running reading series in Queens, NY. She recently completed her second novel, The Last Echo Through the Plains. Her short story collection These Hills Were Meant for You was shortlisted in the 2018 Katherine Anne Porter Prize.

Lola Koundakjian is a regular reader in New York City and has appeared in four international poetry festivals. She curates a poetry reading series at the Zohrab Information Center in midtown Manhattan, and since 2006, has promoted Armenian culture with texts, translations and audio for the Armenian Poetry Project. She is the author of The Accidental Observer (2011 USA) and Advice to a Poet (2014 Peru; 2015 USA). Her work has also appeared in journals and anthologies on three continents. www.lolakoundakjian.com

Christopher Atamian: Into the Woods

for N.S.

I

Into the woods I go

Ever faster ever slow

As green gives way to red

I walk along the riverbed

Some trees become fairies

Others soar in lofty aeries

Great armies doing battle

Young lovers kissing, prattle

A history of my world

Told daily, how it unfurl’d

In the morning and late at night

Like a martyr I go into the light.

II

Into the woods I go

Contrite that I do not know

How to save my people

How to pray in a steeple

From Cilicia and Mt. Lebanon

They came

Refugees all the same.

On Riverside Drive I think of them

As a young Orthodox maiden rips her hem.

III

Into the woods I go

Full of hope, full of dope.

I will not fast I will not slow

Just as I want I go.

I do not know many things

As I pull lightly on my silver rings-

Vincennes is what?--3000 miles away

And yet and yet

I think of Sarafian

Night and day.

Into the woods I go

And now blissful it begins to snow.

-Christopher Atamian

Christopher Atamian: Three Wise Men (Murder on 187th Street)

(What a Christmas present, in December, 1933…


Oh they knifed the Bishop dead!
He was a Saint, a Godly man
A leader of our flock
The first man, a Ramgavar, said.

Oh they knifed the bishop dead!
He deserved it, the bastard betrayed Gomidas
To the Turkish Secret Police and let Smyrna burn
The second man, a Tashnag, said.

O they knifed the bishop dead!
Who will sleep with my wife now
When I am too tired in bed?
The Third man, no party affiliation, said

You had better wash that altar clean
At old Holy Cross Church in Washington Heights.
So much blood spilled, so much sin.

Christopher Atamian: Being

Հայը այն է որ կը տագնապի իտէալ հայ չ՛ըլլալուն համար.
Վահէ Օշական

(The Armenian is he who suffers from not being an ideal Armenian)
Vahe Oshagan

We try to hold in our minds
The inability to understand
What it is that we are searching for.
East and West, Old and New
Opposites stripped of meaning
Grasping for a past that constantly eludes us.
A prophet from Edessa, a giant from Moush
Nomads sprung from desert and rock,
Traveling backwards through Cilician time
Mourning for memories
We try to suppress.
And always the yearning
For something we cannot ever reach.

Christopher Atamian: Mixobarbarians

Mixobarbarians at the gate
Carrying take-out fusion
Diasporan specials, hold the curry
More kim chi please
Divided souls, fifth columnists
Guilt-ridden BMW stick shifters
One eye eastward the other West.
Long gone are the days
Of Pledge Allegiancc to the Flag-
Now Jansenists at heart
Questioning everything
Accepting nothing
Globalized skeptics.

Christopher Atamian: Hana Spills the Milk

for Gregory Djanikian

It is nineteen eighty something
And Hana Mandlikova has Chris Evert by the throat
Up five games to zero in the third as I watch nervously
(How I wish to be truly American and blond like she
Every fiber of my body aches and wants to kiss the very ground she walks on)

“Well anyone’s better than that dyke what’s her name? Pfuh” my father
spits.”
“Martina I answer and my heart sinks. Martina is a sister
Gay as a picnic basket, pink as a rubyfruit jungle.

And slowly Chrissie comes back
Apple pie, Chevrolet, one game, now two
Ice Maiden, Queen of Cool, (a thinking man’s sex pot)
Now three games and four, that’s what she does best

And as she finally takes the lead, it all comes out:
The Marxist-Chrissie-hating-American-bashing.
The shame of it almost makes me scream
(because Hana is Czech and the Czechs are behind the iron curtain
and so are Armenians so we must love her over Chrissie
even after the tanks have rolled into Prague.
And their names are hard to pronounce too
so we must feel kinship, empathize.)

At five games to six, my father can barely contain himself.
He jumps out of his seat
As if he were at a World Cup final
Knocking over his madzoon and plate of pilaf.

“Aggh my son! My son! Look, Hana is going to spill the milk!”
I nod dutifully and smile with inner glee.
Apple pie and Chevrolet is about to win the Open again
Sputnik and the commies can go to Hades.

And before leaving the house, I cannot help but correct him:
“It’s spill the beans, dad, and cry over spilled milk.”
Pause for effect, look straight into his Anatolian eyes.
“All she did was choke-plain and simple. No metaphors or fancy
turns-of-phrases required.”
And my father looks up and stares at his long-haired American son, befuddled.

Christopher Atamian: Parler Arménien

(dédié à Chavarch Nartuni)

Je refuse de parler Arménien avec un chat,
Dans mes rèves,
Errant comme un somnambule fou.

Je refuse de parler Arménien avec un chat,
Moi qui n’aurais pas oublié ma langue natale
Puisque je ne l’ai jamais, au contraire, parlée

Je refuse de parler Arménien avec un chat
Dans mes rêves, comme un somnambule fou
Et ce n’est ni un psychiatre Grec ni un bourreau Turc
Qui m’y forcera.

Je me réveillerai plutôt un beau matin d’été
Et je te prendrai la main
Medz mayrig que j’aimais tant.

Je refuse de parler Arménien avec un chat
Dans mes rêves,
Errant comme un somnambule fou

Je te tiendrai la main, medz mayrig
Et l’on chantera ensemble
Le long de notre plaine ancestrale

Tu me demanderas mon nom
Et je répondrai en Arménien.


par Christophe Atamian

I Refuse to Speak Armenian… 

(dedicated to Shavarsh Nartuni)

I refuse to speak Armenian to a cat

In my dreams,

Sleep walking

Like some crazed somnambulist.

I refuse to speak Armenian to a cat

I, who will never forget my native tongue

Since I have in fact never spoken it.

I refuse to speak Armenian to a cat

In my dreams,

Sleep walking

Like some crazed somnambulist.

And neither a Greek psychiatrist

Nor a Turkish executioner

Will force me to it.

Instead I will wake up

One sunny summer morning

And take your hand, medz mayrig

That I loved so much.

I refuse to speak Armenian to a cat

In my dreams,

Sleep walking

Like some crazed somnambulist.

I will take your hand, medz mayrig

And together we shall sing

As we cross our ancestral plain.

You will ask me my name

And I will answer in Armenian.

English adaptation by the author Christopher Atamian

Christopher Atamian: Washington Heights - 2

Haredim

I ask the Orthodox men if they know
Where I may find the local Starbuck's
And:
Mouths that will not
(Acknowledge me purse their lips, silent)
Hats that will not
(Reveal head to sky, remain still)
Skirts that will not
(Graze the ground, shuffle)
Hands that will not
(Touch the goyim, retract)
It is Friday 5 pm
Soon they will turn off their lights and
Retreat to their candle-lit rooms
Religion, meant to bring light
Sometimes
Brings darkness instead.


Christopher Atamian. Used here by kind permission of the author.

Christopher Atamian: Washington Heights - 1

Babel

Beirutine roses dot Islamic arches
Peacock curves and serpentine roads
Medieval monastery and orange baked church tops
Smog fuming strong from exhaust pipes escaping
Over mile-long lighted bridge
Named after a President long gone.

Orthodox men with smart doe-eyed women
Weave past garish blue modernist bus depot
Dominican muscles strain under tight cotton mesh
The smell of arroz con pollo, shaved ice mango and street vendor
incense

An Armenian church, parishioners long-gone, stands guard on West
187th Street.
Chinese and Iranian medical students, books in hand
Ghosts that you can barely detect anymore
Whisper secrets nonetheless.

Biblical Babel rose to the skies, punishment from God
But here babble is like a paradise lost
Singing its sweet immigrant songs: a promise.

-Christopher Atamian. Used here by kind permission of the author.