Showing posts with label William Zeytounlian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Zeytounlian. Show all posts

Thursday, July 13, 2023

William Zeytounlian: Armenia

 Armenia


By William Zeytounlian


There is a dual dimension of history written from the testimonies of a survivor. It’s certainly a speech about the past. But first of all, it is a discourse about the present, or rather, a discourse about the project that the survivor has about the interlocutor. With a survivor, we enter the collective ditch of the past with our present-day clothing, like the apostles of a Renaissance painting in ancient Jerusalem or Dante in hell.


The alphabet on the shield


Unveils the grass,


The abridged sand


We – weak morrow


Muffled breath


Us – oblivion, memory


Of a breed


 


Ottoman moon


Shiny epidermis —


Reveals the seed,


The sober aria


Over sand:


 


Before we’re past


Breaths we were


 


Translated from Portuguese by Shushanik Hovakimyan

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

William Zeytounlian: Di-áspora:

 Di-áspora:

sêmen somos e óvulo

lançados de novo à terra –

um dia duvidaram do gérmen;

hoje somos bifurcação incontável.

Di-áspora:

como um auspício,

Tumanian leu o futuro

no voo de um grou.


Mas teria imaginado

que entre as bananeiras e arranha-céus,

entre as catedrais góticas

e os rios de leite da Califórnia

prescrutaríamos

apenas com a memória,

todo o deserto da Síria?


Teria imaginado que

buscaríamos o que fosse,

lasca de osso,

feixe de cabelo?


William Zeytounlian

William Zeytoulian (nascido em São Paulo em 1988) é mestre em História pela Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), esgrimista, poeta e tradutor.