IALA’s (International Armenian Literary Alliance) Young Armenian Poets Awards announced
APP wishes to congratulate the three poets who won IALA's Young Armenian Poets Awards, as well as the poet who received an honorable mention. Below are their poems previously published in H-pem online magazine:
Sarkis Anthony Antonyan: I Meet the Gravedigger Burying a Soldier from Artsakh
Please, let me swallow the rain
to save this soil. He needs a good home,
a dry cavern to sleep.
I will not
be long, I promise.
His exoskeleton,
soaked in military pattern,
must take one last
breath of the world around it.
Let me see the red on
his chest one more time,
poked into
the plush like acupuncture,
almost deliberate.
Do you know
who is responsible for this act?
If not, I will tell you.
It was like
this. At home, we were glued to
the bottom of a well and stuffed with sand.
And I didn’t know him
until the
stones around us crumbled. Do not drop him
quick! I beg for you
to take my money
and give me his gun. Now the flashing medallions
on his chest darken,
the puckering ribbons
washing away without sound. How is this
the resolution
of an incomplete history?
I have removed my voice box
and placed it
on his heart. Salted,
immobile.
Now, let me say
to him:
You are missed.
You,
driven to the ground with honor. Perhaps
this exile wasn’t fated by the stars,
but rooted in the obligation of our clan.
Above us,
the clouds swirl gray and
inhale to accept the light. The Sun,
a bead of hope in their curtains
claiming the parting before it.
I do not think this story is over,
will never be. I am hesitant but:
here is our
farewell. And watch!
See how
this cavalier has
become a snowy dove,
rising through the ashes
and sunlight,
away.
Sarkis Anthony Antonyan is a student at Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School Chatsworth, CA. He is 17 years old.
__________________
Sofia Demirdjian-Lara: I See You in the Jacarandas
I look at the Jacaranda tree
In front of my apartment
I hear your whispers
In the wind,
I feel your goosebumps
In the cracks of your skin,
And within them
I walk into the closet of a dream.
I can feel you smiling at me
Through the veins of the leaves
I see myself pondering
In the nest above your head
Feeding my children.
I am a bird
In another life
By your side.
I am one with the wind
Blowing kisses
In your direction
So that you can feel them
On your cheeks
So you can blush with the rosy pink
That used to hide
Within the dark forests
Of your makeup drawer
Isn’t it lovely,
How I can see my life
Now that you stand
Right before my eyes.
Isn’t it lovely,
How I can see myself
Now that you are gone.
Sofia Demirdjian-Lara attends Heritage School in Glendale, CA. She is 17 years old.
__________________
Lucine Ekizian: Go Light on the Sweetness
Replacing the chamomile in my tea
With the compact flowers, with purple petals,
Hugging yellow centers,
Encompassing millions of
Beginnings, endings,
And middles.
I add the floral palette not to remember,
But to forget-me-not.
Does the honey cause a paucity of flavor?
My moral compass spins as
I pour in the sweetness.
I will not drink tea without honey,
I will not consume honey without tea.
As my soul lives there, and my body here,
I live in both worlds,
I live to acculturate.
Lucine Ekizian attends Blair High School in Pasadena, CA and she is 15 years old.
__________________
Natalie Abadjian: o White (Honorable mention)
As I pick up my #2 pencil, I’m left with 5 full moons to choose from.
None of them represent me, I circle what is most “appropriate.”
White, compiling myself with genocidal colonizers hiding behind the name of my country’s religion, the first nation to accept Jesus as their savior.
Dismissing my 1.5 million ancestors,
ancestral blood,
lands,
tears,
5,000 18/19 year old martyrs.
Succumbing to the prioritization of oil over human life, propaganda, gaslighting, mocking, injustice, human rights violations, & blood money.
As idolized politicians camouflage their support through fraudulent systems, our hearts become vegan at the hopes of one day being recognized.
The history of Noah’s descendants being re-“written” while the silence that prevailed bomb shelters for 45 days lingers,
waiting for what once was.
As these words drip from a demoralized diaspora’s lips,
the juice from our pomegranate veins seep,
our black bushy unibrow(s) mending the bridges between our ancestors that we never got to do.
With mustard seed faith
we thumbtack our “unanswered” prayers to the front of our skulls.
we mournfully tread with cynicism as omnipotent as Ararat.
The same way you, unapologetically, fund terrorists who value my head, if beheaded, at $100, while indigenous Armenians come to a point where no word in the English vocabulary describes our emotions.
I’m unapologetic Amerikkkan school system,
for the next time you see none of the zeros filled in.
ամօթ.
Natalie Abadjian attends Pasadena High School in Pasadena, CA. She is 15 years old
