Librarian/Curator for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Background
Armenian Poetry: Exploring the Los Angeles Voices
May 16, 2023, 4:00–5:30 pm PDT
This event was a discussion on Armenian poetry and featured a reading of two talented Los Angeles-based poets, Shahé Mankerian and Arthur Kayzakian.
Organized by Alena Aissing (Librarian/Curator for the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) and Nora Avetyan (Armenian and Persian Catalog Librarian);
Promotional designs by Gissel Rios (Selection and Outreach Support Assistant)
Speakers
Shahé Mankerian, principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School in Pasadena and director of mentorship at the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA), will be discussing his inaugural poetry collection, History of Forgetfulness, which was published by Fly on the Wall Press in the UK. Mankerian is a recipient of the Los Angeles Music Centre’s BRAVO Award, and he served as the co-director of the Los Angeles Writing Project from 2011 to 2019.
Arthur Kayzakian, Winner of the 2021 Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series award for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings. Kayzakian is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and serves as the Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has been featured in several publications including Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art. Chicago Review, and Prairie Schooner.
Armenian Poetry: Exploring the Los Angeles Voices: Session Recording
Selected Works
History of forgetfulness by ISBN: 1913211622Date: 2021"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" (Google Books).
The Book of Redacted Paintings by ISBN: 9781625570512Date: 5/26/2023In The Book of Redacted Paintings, the narrative arc follows a boy in search of his father's painting, but it is unclear whether the painting exists or not. The book, a poetry collection, is also populated by a series of paintings. Some are real, incomplete, and/or missing, while most are redacted from reality. The withdrawn paintings concept is the emotional arc of the book, a combination of wishing one could paint the pieces he/she/they envision and the feeling of something torn out of a person due to a traumatic upbringing. A sort of erasure ekphrasis, to foresee artwork that was never painted.My Burning City by
ISBN: 9798888382530Date: 6/16/2023My Burning City is the winner of the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition, and the poems in this chapbook are part of a full-length collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings, that was selected as the inaugural title of the Immigrant Writing Series with Black Lawrence Press. The poems "Rain," and "Armenian Folk Dance, 1915" won the PS Strousse Award with Prairie Schooner. My Burning City is a book of poetry about a boy escaping the Islamic Republic of Iran in search of a new homeland. The book takes up loss, immigration, and war as central themes.
