Avetik ISSAHAKIAN
( 1875 - 1957 )

Avetik Issahakian, one of the most popular of Armenian poets, was born in 1875 in Alexandropol (now Leninakan) in the District of Sheerak, dominated by the four-peaked Mount Aragats, in the north-west of Soviet Armenia. His name is closely associated with his native Sheerak, which has been the source of inspiration for many of his works.
Issahakian started writing poetry at an early age, and he gained immediate popularity with the publication of his very first book of verses, when he was barely twenty-three. The present volume consists mainly of his long poem, 'Abou Lala Mahari', which is considered to be his masterpiece. Written in 1909, it is an outburst against the injustice of society at that time. It takes the form of an imaginary flight into the immensity of the desert by the hero, imbued with hatred against Mankind, which he can no longer tolerate.
Included in this volume are also a few of Issahakian's popular short poems.

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CONTENTS
Foreword 7
First Tears 9
Beneath this willow-tree 10
Mount Ararat 11
Dark, leaden clouds 12
A hard, black stone 13
The night came 14
Pretty maiden 15
I saw a lake in my dream 16
When I die 17
Abou Lala Mahari 18

Abu Lala Mahari, renowned Arab poet of the 10th—Hth century, for thirty years lived in Baghdad, the magnificent city of the Khalifs, always lived in glory and munificence; sat at the table of the mighty and the wealthy; argued with the learned and the wise; loved and tempted his fellow-beings; travelled far in the lands of other nations; saw and observed people and their laws, and his penetrating soul understood the man, and comprehended and deeply hated the man and his laws.

And because he did not have a wife and children, he distributed all his wealth among the poor and the needy; and one night while Baghdad slumbered on the bands of the cypress-dotted Tigris River, he gathered his caravan of camels and silently moved out of the city towards the unknown...