Lola Koundakjian's article about poet Gregory Djanikian

The article has appeared in the September 8, 2007 issue of the The Armenian Reporter. Access the PDF file directly by clicking on the link here.

Gregory Djanikian: My Name Brings Me to a Notion of Splendor

No one could pronounce it
without mutilating spindling tearing
even my best friends would shrug halfway giving up
and always the long pause on the first day of class
after Dillon or Dinsemore or Dix
every face turning to me even though
my name was not yet called and mangled
in every probable way oh why wasn't I
Jenkins or Jennings something safer
and mannerly anything but this minefield
of letters set against each other sticking
in the mouth as if the fault were mine
as if no other name were as impenetrable
not Knoebbels or Steinbacher not Stoltzfus
or Schmidt how did they come to be
so inconspicuous who were they
playing kickball tracing maps of America
doing long division on the blackboard
as easily as if they were walking
across the street in their sleep no worries
no boundaries to trip them up no Mr. Bielfield
telling my mother I'll straighten him out
what was so crooked? even my past life
seemed now a dark labyrinth of passages
my grandfather standing on the wharf in Alexandria
waving goodbye and me on the great ship
waving back not knowing where the prow
would finally lodge on what rock what piece
of exquisitely verdant beach who knew
I would have to unravel the tangle
of circumstances that put me in a small
landlocked lumber town in Pennsylvania
face to face now with Joe Schunk and having
to explain the D was silent easy enough
to say once you got the hang of it but Joe didn't
and it was five or six fast blocks of losing him
down Hawthorne and across to Pine my heart
thumping and beads of sweat glistening
on my arms before I heard Louisa Richards
suddenly call out DeeJay to me from her porch
in a way that stopped me in my tracks
because nothing had ever sounded so good
and nothing came easier than to walk
up the stairs and sit down by her
and begin telling her who I was.


Copyright Gregory Djanikian. This poem is from the collection entitled So I Will Till the Ground and has appeared in Poems.com on March 3, 2007.

Gregory Djanikian Reads 'Geography Lesson' and Other Poems

Gregory Djanikian Reads 'Geography Lesson' and Other Poems | NewsHour Poetry Series | PBS


Watch the video clip by clicking on the link below from the NewsHour Poetry Series on PBS

Gregory Djanikian: Immigrant Picnic

It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.

And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped
like the state of Pennsylvania.

I ask my father what's his pleasure
and he says, "Hot dog, medium rare,"
and then, "Hamburger, sure,
what's the big difference,"
as if he's really asking.

I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,
slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,
uncap the condiments. The paper napkins
are fluttering away like lost messages.

"You're running around," my mother says,
"like a chicken with its head loose."

"Ma," I say, "you mean cut off,
loose and cut off being as far apart
as, say, son and daughter."

She gives me a quizzical look as though
I've been caught in some impropriety.
"I love you and your sister just the same," she says,
"Sure," my grandmother pipes in,
"you're both our children, so why worry?"

That's not the point I begin telling them,
and I'm comparing words to fish now,
like the ones in the sea at Port Said,
or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,
unrepentantly elusive, wild.

"Sonia," my father says to my mother,
"what the hell is he talking about?"
"He's on a ball," my mother says.

"That's roll!" I say, throwing up my hands,
"as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll . . . ."

"And what about roll out the barrels?" my mother asks,
and my father claps his hands, "Why sure," he says,
"let's have some fun," and launches
into a polka, twirling my mother
around and around like the happiest top,

and my uncle is shaking his head, saying
"You could grow nuts listening to us,"

and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai
burgeoning without end,
pecans in the South, the jumbled
flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,
wordless, confusing,
crowding out everything else.

This poem has appeared in the Poetry Anthology: Ninety Years of America's Most Distinguished Verse Magazine. Edited by Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young. Ivan R. Dee Publication, 2002.
Gregory Djanikian read the poem on July 4, 2007 NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (PBS) which can be accessed here.

Gregory Djanikian at PENN SOUND

Gregory Djanikian reading to celebrate the publication of So I Will Till the Ground (Carnegie Mellon, 2007),
Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania, February 20, 2007
Click here to hear them.

1. Introduction by Al Filreis (5:10)
2. Introduction by Sam Donsky (5:31)
3. Introduction by Greg Djanikian (1:15)
4. "The Aestheticians of Genocide" (3:01)
5. "History Test" (3:14)
6. "The Soldiers" (1:29)
7. "The Deportation Song" (1:47)
8. "Children's Lullaby" (1:44)
9. "Armenian Pastoral" (1:23)
10. "Covenant" (1:31)
11. "How My Grandfather Escaped" (0:50)
12. "In the City of Languages: Alexandria, 1955" (3:06)
13. "When I Saw My Grandfather Taking a Bath" (2:02)
14. "Suez War, Alexandria, 1956" (2:03)
15. "Deportation Schedule" (2:05)
16. "The Electrolook Salesman Visits Our Apartment" (1:59)
17. "How We Practiced Being American" (2:01)
18. "My Name Brings Me to a Notion of Splendor (2:25)
19. "Brief History of Border Crossings" (2:58)
20. "Immigrant Picnic" (2:26)
21. "Buying a Rug" (2:18)
22. "Armenian Primer" (1:55)
23. "So I Will Till the Ground" (1:11)

Gregory Djanikian: I Ask My Grandmother If We Can Make Lahmajoun

Sure, she says, why not,
we buy the ground lamb from the market
we buy parsley, fresh tomatoes, garlic
we cut, press, dice, mix

make the yeasty dough
the night before, kneading it
until our knuckles feel the hardness
of river beds or rocks in the desert

we tell Tante Lola to come
with her rolling pins we tell
Zaven and Maroush, Hagop and Arpiné
to bring their baking sheets

we sprinkle the flour on the kitchen table
and it is snowing on Ararat
we sprinkle the flour and the memory
of winter is in our eyes

we roll the dough out
into small circles
pale moons over
every empty village

Kevork is standing on a chair
and singing
O my Armenian girl
my spirit longs to be nearer

Nevrig is warming the oven
and a dry desert breeze
is skimming over the rooftops
toward the sea

we are spreading the lahma
on the ajoun with our fingers
whispering into it the histories
of those who have none

we are baking them
under the heat of the sun
the dough crispening
so thin and delicate

you would swear
it is valuable parchment
we are taking out
and rolling up in our hands

and eating and tasting again
everything that has already
been written
into the body.

_________________________________
This poem has appeared in POETRY magazine (May 2002) and Ararat Quarterly (Winter 2004). It appears also in the upcoming So I Will Till the Ground volume, published by Carnegie Mellon, in January 2007.

Prof. Djanikian has given his consent to reproduce it here.

Gregory Djanikian: Grandmother, Garlic and Alexandria

Click to hear
Grandmother Garlic and Alexandria, read by Lola Koundakjian.

This poem won the Rosalie Boyle award from the New England Poetry Club. It has appeared in the Autumn 1995 issue of Ararat Quarterly and in About Distance a collection of poems by the author, published by Carnegie Mellon press, 1995.




Gregory Djanikian directs the undergraduate creative writing program at University of Pennsylvania, where he also teaches poetry workshops. He is the author of several collections of poetry, The Man in the Middle, Falling Deeply into America, About Distance (1995), Years Later (2000), So I Will Till the Ground (2007), all from Carnegie-Mellon. His work has appeared in Poetry, American Scholar, Antioch Review, and Poet Lore.

Prof. Djanikian's books are available in bookstores throughout the United States.