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memories of my ghost sista

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memories of my ghost sista

Tag Archives: Yerevan

lilit shakhkyan

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia

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Armenia, Lilit Shakhkyan, Mari Izmirlyan Orphanage, Peace Corps, please reblog, SOAR, SOCIETY FOR ORPHANED ARMENIAN RELIEF, Yerevan

lovely

We live in a world desperately full of children needing love and support. I repost everything the SOCIETY FOR ORPHANED ARMENIAN RELIEF (SOAR) posts because I deeply believe in everything they do.

Mari Izmirlyan Orphanage is a state orphanage in Yerevan housing approximately 100 children with special needs between the ages of 6 and 18. The SOAR Sponsorship Program is the primary mechanism through which SOAR provides support to specific orphaned Armenian children. Each week we highlight an orphaned Armenian child. This week, we highlight Lilit Shakhkyan at Mari Izmirlyan Orphanage.

Lilit has a serious hearing disability. In 2011, SOAR contributed to the costs of ear surgery for Lilit in which a Baha device was implanted in her ear. Lilit currently attends a special school for the hearing impaired.


Lilit likes to be in the focus of attention. She likes to participate in individual trainings, to play with constructive games, play with dolls, and play with bright-colored toys. She does not like to communicate with peers. She can compare objects and find similarities and differences. Mostly she communicates with facial expressions and behavior. Her future aspirations are to develop social skills, to use voice for communication, and to pronounce sounds.

If you would like to sponsor Lilit, please contact George S. Yacoubian, Jr., at gyacoubian@soar-us.org or enroll through the Sponsorship Program by selecting Lilit from Mari Izmirlyan. Thank you in advance for your support!

the path into purgatory

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Poetry, sonnet

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1995-1997, Aragats, bus rides, Dante, Gyumri, Hellz da bomb, Hrazdan, Inferno, Peace Corps, poem, Poetry, Purgatory, sonnet, Yerevan

… at the midpoint of the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest, for the clear path was lost.
—Dante Alighieri, Inferno

All roads to Hell start like this, Dante tells
us. The path into purgatory, though,
the ghost realm, is much more difficult. Hell’s
Nine Circles are sick and flash, we all know
Hellz da bomb. Limbo, though, is a bus ride.
We wound through the farms on the Hrazdan,
then north, near Aragats. I had no guide,
no blessed Virgil. I could not speak more than
baby-words. But, as the bus turned the last
mountain pass, there it was spread out below:
empty, vast, flat. A gray valley so vast
it was all horizon. But there—a glow
on the edge—ghost ruin that had survived
the ’88 earthquake—I had arrived.

notes:

Inferno is the first part of Dante’s epic poem Divine Comedy. It is an allegory telling of the journey Dante took through Hell, guided by the soul of the Roman poet, Virgil.

Hrazdan is a river that flows through the Ararat valley, irrigating many apricot orchards and farmland. It divides the city of Yerevan in half. Once, during a very drunken party, a bunch of us Americans went skinny dipping in the river because what’s the point of having a river in your city if you can’t strip off all your clothes and jump in it now and then?

Mt. Aragats is the highest peak in Armenia, forming part of a mountain chain that separates Gyumri from Yerevan. To travel between the two cities required me taking a big red autobus that traveled roughly 15 miles an hour, it felt like, worming its way up and down high mountain roads. The city I refer to at the end of the poem is Gyumri, which in 1988 was totally destroyed in an earthquake that killed 25,000 people. When I arrived seven years later it was still rubble, looking like something out of a war movie.

shadows follow

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Poetry, sonnet

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1995-1997, Elie Wiesel, memory, Peace Corps, poem, Poetry, sonnet, Yerevan

Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.
— Elie Wiesel

If my memories could have only slept
in Yerevan; if I would have never
faced the sky’s worrisome slackness, windswept
spirits swept between mountains and further
rocks; if the swifts and skylarks had only
saved me; then telling you of what happened
would be utterable. My skull’s memory
feels like an oak-beam ripped in two, opened
by force. Hesitantly I step forward.
I want to tell you how this all began
but pain is potent and drives everything
away. There is no magic, no numbered
spell to ease this. No. I left Yerevan
and went north, which was all my undoing.

wreckage’s fate

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Poetry, sonnet

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fate, Hanrapetu'tyan Hraparaksurchgareju, poem, Poetry, Republic Square, sonnet, wreckage, Yerevan

Was there enough time to know the wreckage
that I soon would be facing? There were swifts,
skylarks, over Republic Square. Savage
small things. I would sit at a cafe, the gifts
from home—letters—spread out on the table
before me, drinking surch and garejur.
Find me a story teller or fable
maker, someone who doesn’t need liqueur
to help forget. Is it wreckage’s fate
to be wreckage? Savage words and bright birds
and I still have nightmares—all in a row.
But still … to have time to sit, watch and wait.
That’s a gift. To have time to write down words
of our fall; to have time enough to know.

][][

notes:

The Republic Square, or Hanrapetu’tyan Hraparak (Հանրապետության հրապարակ) as it is called in Armenian, is the large central square in the heart of Yerevan. It is intersected by Abovyan, Nalbandyan, Vazgen Sargsyan and Amiryan streets as well as Tigran Mets avenue. During my summer training (1995) in Peace Corps I would sit at a little cafe outside the National Gallery and History Museum, drinking coffee, surch (սուրճ) and beer, garejur (գարեջուր) and watching the skylarks circle in the sky far over head. I liked that particular cafe partly because it was fun to people watch (everyone passes through the square at some point) but also because the layout of the square gives anyone sitting at the cafe an obscured view of Mt. Ararat, which is always a nice thing.

mountain mountain mountain

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Poetry, sonnet

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1995-1997, Ararat, Armenia, Kurdish villages, Noah, Peace Corps, poem, Poetry, sonnet, Turkish gunships, Yerevan

But stay tender. Stay enchanted. Mountain,
mountain, mountain. I drank you like vodka,
so you weren’t useless like a grave. Heathen
women prayed for you and so did Noah.
We flew in during the city’s blackout.
I didn’t realize just how you dazzled
until I fell in love with your devout
colors: blue hues cut into deep purple.
Everywhere I went that summer I spied
you. Then, when Turkish gunships attacked
Kurdish towns, smoke darkened your eastern side.
People still pray to you. We build abstract
myths then tear them down. There’s nothing cryptic
about how this wayfarer is homesick.

Image

fernando botero’s statue CAT, located near the cascade steps, yerevan

01 Monday Apr 2013

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Armenia, Cascade Steps, CAT statue, Fernando Botero, Yerevan

Fernando Botero’s statue Cat, located near the Cascade Steps, Yerevan

Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, Illustration and art

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even in armenia clowns are evil (vernissage, yerevan)

01 Monday Apr 2013

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Art Market, Even in Armenia clowns are evil, Vernissage, Yerevan

Even in Armenia clowns are evil (taken in the Vernissage, Yerevan)

Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, Illustration and art

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movie poster starring that famous armenian, nicholas cagian (season of the witch, yerevan)

01 Monday Apr 2013

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Movie poster starring that famous Armenian, Nicholas Cagian (Season of the Witch, Yerevan

Movie poster starring that famous Armenian, Nicholas Cagian (Season of the Witch, Yerevan)

Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, Illustration and art

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random poster in yerevan (ian anderson plays jethro tull)

01 Monday Apr 2013

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Armenia, poster, Random poster in Yerevan (Ian Anderson plays Jethro Tull), Yerevan

Random poster in Yerevan (Ian Anderson plays Jethro Tull)

Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, Illustration and art

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statue outside the mashtots institute of ancient manuscripts (matenadaran) in yerevan

01 Monday Apr 2013

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art, Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Matenadaran, statue, Yerevan

Statue outside the Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Matenadaran) in Yerevan

Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, Illustration and art

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ars poetica: the blogs e-h

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ars poetica: the blogs i-l

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  • miriam levine

ars poetica: the blogs m-o

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  • ottawa poetry newsletter
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ars poetica: the blogs p-r

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ars poetica: the blogs s-z

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