IntroductionWhen our fathers came to North America, among their first creations were cultural journals and newspapers. My father was brought to Canada in 1924 with ninety other orphans, to a farm home in Georgetown, Ontario. They resisted attempts to anglicize their names (as if anyone could comprehend how Mampre Shirinian can become Paul Oliver), and started the first Armenian periodical in Canada, ARARAT. These were thirteen year old boys writing their memories of the life they left behind in the old country, and their hopes for a future in North America. The story of HAIRENIK is a more mature parallel in America. Wherever Armenians settled they felt the immediate need to communicate through literature. As a result of our fathers' efforts to keep Armenian culture vital in the Diaspora, perhaps we can say that now the second and third generations are beginning to experience a new awareness of their heritage.
This book is part of that sensibility, and more importantly, it shows that it is creative. David Kherdian in his first editorial as editor of ARARAT in New York in 1971 clearly explained the significance of this:
A culture is vital to the degree in which it is alive in the present, but we can secure our future in that we preserve and understand our past. The movement is ever back and forth, from who we were to what we have become, and this is the tension of life that we speak of when we speak of it creatively... What greater celebration can there be than that we have come through: that we are afoot and abroad, with limb, tongue and blood intact. For if you deny your working and living artists today, you will before very long, lose the ancient artists you are so eager to extoll-because if in them lies the preservation of our culture, then the perpetuation of it lies in our contemporary poets, painters and musicians. (ARARAT, No. 45, Winter, 1971)
It is unreal to expect that the Armenian culture our fathers lived and brought with them should remain static in a new land. The variety of subject matter of the voices in this book, and the very fact that a part of their Armenian culture is expressed in English, attest to a change. Yet many of the poets remember. This anthology has acted as a focal point for poets who share a common heritage. In doing this book I came to realize just how strong the roots are. Most of the poets here are familiar with each other, and the energetic correspondence among ourselves made the gathering of material seem like a communal effort. As we live we do not forget. This is our word.
I would like to thank Leo Hamalian for his help in getting this project under way, and Harold Bond for his many thoughtful suggestions.
Lome Shirinian, Toronto, November, 1974.
Table Of Contents
Introduction... 1
Archie Minasian.. . 3
Peter Manuelian... 8
James Magorian... 13
David Kherdian... 16
Helene Pilibosian... 24
Ralph Setian... 30
Alan Hovhaness... 34
Leo Hamalian... 38
Vaughn Koumjian... 41
Mary Avakian Freericks... 46
Harold Bond... 50
Michael Casey... 59
John Vartoukian... 62
Leon Srabian Herald... 66
Shant Basmajian... 70
Ara Baliozian... 73
Diana Der Hovanessian... 79
Lome Shirinian... 85
Hagop Missak Mer jian... 92
Harry Keyishian... 99
Vivian Kurkjian... 102
