Café Poetry Night: Two Poems

Café Poetry Night: Two Poems
For three years now, poet-principal Shahe Mankerian and his eighth grade students at St. Gregory A. & M. Hovsepian School in Pasadena, California, have observed National Poetry Month with their own Café Poetry Night. For the event, the students choose poems written by contemporary Armenian-American poets, memorize them, and then recite them before an audience of family and friends. The students don’t stop there; they also write their own poems inspired by those they’ve chosen. And then, to complete the circle, poets who live in the area attend and read the students’ poems. This year’s Café Poetry Night will be held Saturday, April 19, 2008, at eight o’clock in the evening. The school is located at 2215 E. Colorado Boulevard. Since I won’t be able to attend, I thought I’d do the next best thing and present “Home Service,” the poem of mine that was chosen for the event, along with “House Keeping,” the wonderful poem based on mine by Arman Seuylemezian. Home Service If I were a child I would reach out touch the deacon’s robe while he sings softly in Armenian a lullaby for my father while he sleeps. Click here for audio version House Keeping by Arman Seuylemezian When I was a kid I would open the bedroom door while Grandpa danced fast to Latin music in his pink underwear. I tried to yawn, but he was too funny. Click here for audio version *“Home Service” is included in the Armenian Poetry Project, founded in New York by curator and producer Lola Koundakjian. It first appeared in Ararat.* Note: Poems, Slightly Used, a growing collection of work first published in my blog, Recently Banned Literature, can be found here. POETRY COLLECTIONS IN PRINT Available from Cosmopsis Books of San Francisco *Winter Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 US $11.95; $8.95 at Cosmopsis Books 52 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes one drawing. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Winter Poems* displays the skills and abilities of Mr. Michaelian at their most elemental level, at the bone. Wandering amidst a barren world, a world scraped bare, he plucks the full moon like fruit from the winter sky, goes mad and befriends a pack of hungry wolves, burns his poems to keep warm. He is a flake of snow, a frozen old man, a spider spinning winter webs. Spring is only a vague notion of a waiting vineyard, crocuses, and ten-thousand babies. The author is alone, musing, reflecting, at times participating. But not quite alone, for he brings the lucky reader along. I’ve been there, to this winter world, and I plan to go back. — John Berbrich, Barbaric Yawp *Another Song I Know — Short Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 US $13.95; $10.95 at Cosmopsis Books 80 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes Author’s Note. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Another Song I Know* is a delightful collection of brief, resilient poems. Reading them, one by one by one, is like taking a walk through our common everyday world and suddenly hearing what the poet hears: the leaves, a coffee cup, chairs — and yes, even people, singing their songs of wisdom, sweetness, and light. *— Tom Koontz, Barnwood* poetry magazine**	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. —————————— Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. —————————— Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author’s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let’s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts *Poetry, Notes & Marginalia:* Recently Banned Literature Collected Poems by William Michaelian A Larger Life Monastery of Psalms Revelation Friends (includes French translation) Summer of Dreams Hunger Is It His Coat? The Boy Who Wrote Letters Forty Days, Forty Nights Papa’s Song (clam chowder blues) The Pilgrim’s Way A Christmas Wish The Teacher The Literary Awakening of America The Healer The Enigmatic Child What Happened to God Reading Tristram Shandy A Prefix of Obscure Meaning He Knows My Only Friend The World I Know We Do Not Need a Poem Three Short Poems The More We Are Looking For I Hear the Earth What Will I Give You? Great Minds Think Alike The Age of Us All I Met My Spirit Claim Denied Summer Days Greek Peppers Another Hard Day James Joyce Singing How Many Stones? At the Armenian Home The Peace Talks The Eggs of March Armenian Music If Poems Were Days Once Again I Lied Frogs One Last Thing Everywhere I Go Up Here On the Hill Pumpkins Winter View What December Said to January Winter Poems Spring Haiku How to Write a Poem, In Three Lessons The Walls Have Ears Why I Don’t Buy Grapes To French Vanilla and All the Other Flavors It Was Early Morning Haiku Someone’s Mother Fall Questions My Old Black Sport Coat The Clerk and the Windmill Roadside Distress, Part 2 Magical Realism (First Prize) Short Poem for Spring Short Poem for Summer I Find Him Eating Butterflies For the Sister I Never Had An Absurdist Play The Second Act Essay Of Poets and Other Things
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