Introduction
The American and Canadian poets assembled in this volume share a common linkage: all are of Armenian descent. By an historic tragedy their fathers were uprooted from their homeland. Most found their way to North America, where their sons and daughters were to adopt another homeland as their own.
Would these poets have written their poems in Armenian had not their fathers been forced to leave Armenia? It is hard to say. Today, on the 60th anniversary of the Armenian massacres by the Turks, most of them do not read Armenian, and they have little contact with the rich bulk of Armenian poetry that goes back two thousand years.
Nostalgia is lived by the fathers, and the sons face the problems of belonging or not belonging. The poetry here moves mainly in one direction: the past, an unremitting return toward roots and belonging. If it were possible to isolate the dichotomy of cultures from their poetry, the technical and structural aspects would more likely be derived from the American heritage, while the warmth and color would spring from the Armenian.
Except for Leon Srabian Herald (who was an established poet already in the twenties) and Archie Minasian, the poets herein made their entrance into poetry in the second half of this century. More exactly, in 1960, which is the date of birth of Ararat magazine—the English-language quarterly published by the Armenian General Benevolent Union of America and the most important meeting point of the Armenian-American and Armenian-Canadian poets.
The selection was made with the help and approval of the contributors. I have tried to put together the most characteristic of each poet's output, with preference for the good poem, rather than the translatable, and for the good ethnic poem, rather than the one which is only good.
Excluded from the book are those who have written poems but who have moved to other areas and are better known for their creations in other genres or art forms (William Saroyan, Alan Hovhaness, Leo Hamalian, etc.). Excluded also are the poets whom it was impossible to contact and those who attached unacceptable conditions to their participation in the anthology. This might be considered a defect. However, I believe this anthology brings together the most representative of Armenian-American and Armenian-Canadian poets.
In a bilingual edition, the presence of the original beside the translation impedes the liberties of the translator. My aim has been to introduce a poetic translation while remaining faithful to the original. If, at times, I have been compelled to sacrifice one for the other, the loser has been the poetical strain and not the fidelity to the original. When I have been obliged to stray from the original, I have consulted the authors. For example, when David Kherdian writes "such overtures of the season," the word season (yeghanag) means also tune in Armenian, and next to "overtures" season would have only meant tune; so with the author's consent season is changed to autumn in my translation.
My thanks go to all the poets in this book, particularly to Leon Srabian Herald, David Kherdian and Harold Bond for their editorial guidance in the preparation of the manuscript. Yervant Azadian and Zareh Melkon-ian effectively helped with the Armenian text. I am especially grateful to the AGBU Alex Manoogian Cultural Fund for its support and funding of this book.
Garig Basmadjian,
Paris, 1975
