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CELEBRATING AMERICAN SHE-POETS (19): Silva Zanoyan Merjanian, Borrowed Sugar Borrowed Time – from war-torn Lebanon to peace in California

Armenian/Lebanese American poet, Silva Zanoyan Merjanian
Silva Zanoyan Merjanian

Silva Zanoyan Merjanian is an Armenian ethnic who was born in Lebanon. She escaped the civil war there and lived for a time in Geneva, ultimately settling to build a family life in California. Silva has two published collections. Most recently Rumor (Cold Water Press, 2015), which received the Best Book Award from NABE in the 2015. Three poems from Rumor were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Silva’s first collection is Uncoil a Night (CreateSpace, 2013).

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Falling

In rind of wishes sticky on lips
and sermons’ echo on facepsalms slipping
in envies squirted on spruce and cedar
whims twirling, spiraled, speckled
gossamer visions of friendships withered
in crevices of an upbeat mien
Your name hidden in prayer embers
I mend among buds of poems
flying on a trapeze
with no one at the other end

Rumor is a stunning tour de force of passionate, life-affirming poetry. Silva Merjanian evokes time and place with both grace and authority. Poetry is obviously a tool for her own healing and in that she brings us face to face with the human condition in all its complexity, beautiful and loving and devastating cruel, and she does so totally without pretension.

Mornings arriving
Me alone
Poems half written and done
Poems between toes and toast
‘Round Midnight and Monk
Nostalgia
Right reasons
Brave decisions
Thoughts that glow in the light
Just love
Always, in absence of rats and such
fresh sheets and I
between over and under

from Between the Sheets

She writes with immediacy of war:

bounce of gold crosses between breasts
colorful hijabs ’round others’ bare face
friendships seeded in borrowed sugar, borrowed time
she, unaware of borrowed wailers on their way
makes plans on a sunny balcony as she hangs
her blue jeans on a clothesline
moments before war drums ripple through crisp calm

from Borrowed Sugar Borrowed Time

INTERVIEW

JAMIE:  Silva, Rumor is a remarkable collection with many poems that stay with one. It’s also quite generous of you to donate proceeds to the Syrian-Amenian Relief Fund (SARF). How are sales going and how is the fundraising?

SILVA: Thank you Jamie. I did not have an event or a formal fundraising with Rumor. The sales were a result of readings, speeches, word of mouth and some ads in newspapers and on Facebook. In July there will be an ad for it in Poets & Writers and it will also be included in five book fairs this summer.

My publisher, Dave Boles of Cold River Press, will release the e-book version soon. He is kind enough to donate all proceeds from the e-book also to the SARF. So with all these developments I expect a boost in sales.

JAMIE: When did you fall in love with poetry? When did you realize you are a poet?

SILVA: I am a late bloomer. I started writing in 2011 and my first book was released in 2013. Even though we grew up with the poetry of Shakespeare, Keats, etc.. and many Armenian poets, the thought of writing poetry hadn’t occurred to me. My education is in Business Administration not Fine Art. It was almost like catching the bug of poetry, very unexpected, once I started writing I couldn’t stop. I didn’t write to be published at first, it was just for the pleasure of it, later when I saw friends publishing books, the idea came to me to publish and make it count for something by donating the proceeds.

JAMIE: What are the reactions to your work that surprise you most?

SILVA: I didn’t expect the level of appreciation for my poetry that I received. Especially from those who themselves write and/or are well read in poetry. I have to thank the Irish first for this recognition. They have such talented poets and they recognized my potential first.

I also didn’t expect the difficulty to be accepted as a writer in the Armenian community. It was almost like they waited for me to be respected in the foreign circles before they’d acknowledge me, instead of reading my work and appreciating it themselves. I am disappointed in that respect.

JAMIE: Tell us something about your travels: How did your family arrive in Lebanon and why did they move from there. How did you end up in the U.S.?

SILVA:  My grandparents had to flee their homes twice, trying to survive the Armenian Genocide. If you are familiar with the book The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Austrian -Bohemian writer Franz Werfel, first published in German in 1933, it is the story of my grandparents. The French helped the population of seven villages escape and relocate as refugees in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. So my grandparents did live under refugee tents for a whole year. Now the area is a buzzing town with three churches and schools and commerce.

I left Lebanon after experiencing eight years of the civil war*. Geneva was the city I healed from the war scars. Later I settled in California to raise my sons with my husband.

JAMIE: What do you think most Westerners don’t understand about the Middle East? What do you know and understand that you would like everyone to know?

SILVA: What most don’t understand about Lebanon, and to a degree parts of the Middle East, is that the vast majority of the people are just the nicest fun loving, peace loving, hard working families. They want for their children everything an American family wants. The number of innocent people who are collateral damage to the events in that part of the world is just heartbreaking.

JAMIE: I understand that your brother is a novelist. Does your family have a history of poets and writers?

SILVA: My brother has two volumes of poetry in Armenian. He is writing his third novel. I am not aware of anyone else in my family who has published books, except a volume of translations by my father.

JAMIE:  You have two well-received collections completed. Where to now?

SILVA:  That’s a question I’ve been asking myself. I think I will keep writing and hope a third book will be in the future for me.

* Lebanese Civil War – 1975-1990

© 2016, portrait, poems, bookcover art and responses to questions, Silva Merjanian, All rights reserved

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ON THE 101st ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: Rape of Arevik by Silva Merjanian

Armenians are marched to a nearby prison in Mezireh by armed Turkish soldiers. Kharpert, Armenia, Ottoman Empire - April, 1915. *From the collection of Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives. Photographed by an anonymous German traveler.

Armenians are marched to a nearby prison in Mezireh by armed Turkish soldiers. Kharpert, Armenia, Ottoman Empire – April, 1915. From the collection of Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives. Photographed by an anonymous German traveler.

There were moonlit nights and many moonless nights
sober and drunken in one grain of sand
in billions of grains there were filthy hands
mud and fingernails between sunburned thighs
this is not my skin with nerves inside out
not my breast squeezed into faint whimpers
like dying swallows caught in a dry mouth

soon I’ll be a memory in last verse of songs
someone meant to write on a summer night
flesh to sand and sand to a story to tell
they’ll mention tattoos* and how I was a slave
look look how many stars in one grain of sand
in a billion grains in a billion tears
screams tangled like strings through my broken ribs

you did not know me then
before much before they tore off my clothes
and the desert night shivered with their rage
you did not see how my hair flowed like silk
on soft pillows where teenage dreams were weaved
you did not know me dressed with flowers in my hair
and my fathers arm around my adolescent frame
you did not see the stars from our wide windows
above the vineyard and my feet bare on the fertile soil
in our apricot tree’s cool summer shade

I’m in the evening news – in a pile of bones
look at the skull at the very left
see the sparrow lodged between those clenched jaws
I’m in the evening news a hundred years late
in the grains of sand shifting restless with shame
in the billion stars in your sky tonight
in my mother’s voice singing kenatzir pallas*
in the moonlit nights and the moonless nights
on a dagger’s blade in the Deir ez-Zor sand

– Silva Merjanian

24 April 2016 is the 101th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, when thousands of women were dragged in the desert, raped and tortured before killed.

  • the reference to tattoos … they used to tattoo the women according to who owned them.
  • Kenatzir pallas is a lullaby very popular with Armenians and means “go to sleep my child”

“Silva’s poetry rewards the reader with the gift of exquisite lacework, adorned with choice words and skillfully wrought poetic imagery, which allow you to get a glimpse of both the intoxicating sensuality of survival and the scalpel scars on the tender skin of life. Many-layered, it excels alike in depicting the sphere of personal experience and of traumatic social issues.” – Dr. Aprilia Zank. Lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation Theory Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany in a review of Silva’s collection Rumor. Three poems rom this collection are Pushcart nominees. The net profits including the publisher’s go to The Armenian-Syrian Relief Fund. About $5,000 dollars have been raised to date.

© 2016, poem and book cover design, Silva Merjanian, All rights reserved; featured here with the permission of the poet; Silva’s website is HERE.; the header photograph is a public domian photograph courtesy of Project Save.

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THE SUNDAY POESY: Opportunities, Events and Other News

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CELEBRATING:

Mohammed Al Ajami, photo courtesy of PEN International
Mohammed Al Ajami, photo courtesy of PEN America

“Mohammed al-Ajami Pardoned by Qatari Emir. It seems that the Government of Qatar has finally listened to the concerns of the United Nations and international community,” says ADHRB’s Executive Director, Husain Abdulla, “The Emir’s decision to pardon Mohammed al-Ajami is not only a victory for free expression over the forces of censorship and repression in Qatar, it is also a testament to the power of public, international pressure to improve human rights everywhere.” Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain

Distinguished English Poet, Myra Schneider, celebrates her 80th birthday this June. In honor of the upcoming occasion, The Poet by Day featured an interview with Myra that includes suggestions for novice poets: A Life Immersed  in Poetry: Myra Schneider Celebrating over 50 years as Poet and Writer.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS:

SELF-PUBLISHED WRITERS AND POETS:

  • You can register your book with Publishers Weekly and submit it for review via its BookLife platform HERE.
  •  Writer’s Digest Deadline for WD Self-Published Book Awards: April 1, 2016 … “here’s your chance to enter the premier self-published competition exclusively for self-published books. Writer’s Digest hosts the 24th annual self-published competition–the Annual Self-Published Book Awards. This self-published competition, co-sponsored by Book Marketing Works, LLC spotlights today’s self-published works and honors self-published authors.” Details HERE
  • Information on other self-published book awards is offer by The Book Designer HERE.

EVENTS:

unnamed-1April 16, 7-9 pm.

LITERARY PUB OR PERISH

Stickyz Rock N’ Roll Chicken Shack
107 River Market Avenue
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201

Join Sharon Frye, Ayara Stein, Silva Zanoyan Merjanian, RJ Looney, Donnie Lamon, MH Clay and Justin Booth. You’ll find the bios of presenters HERE.

APRIL 14-17, The above event is part of the Little Rock, Arkansas Annual Literary Festival.

MARCH 21, 6-7pm in HumSS G27, University of Reading Whiteknights Campus. Poet, playwright, director, producer and teacher Mojisola Adebayo will give a talk on and reading from her work,  Mojisola Adebayo: Plays One (Oberon Books, 2012), on Monday 21 March, Mojisola will discuss her work with the Department’s expert on black British theatre, Nicola Abram. No charge and no reservation needed.

734866_1188351144510894_2329117433083661482_nMojisola Adebayo: Plays One includes the plays Moj of the Antarctic, Desert Boy, Matt Henson: North Star and Muhammad Ali and Me

Moj of the Antarctic is inspired by the true story of an African American woman who cross-dresses as a white man to escape slavery; taken on a fantastical odyssey to Antarctica.

Desert Boy, a time-travelling a capella musical, offers a sharp twist on the subject of knife crime, black youth and absent fathers.

Matt Henson, North Star is a biographical tale of Arctic betrayal, mixed with Greenlandic folk tales; all about love, climate and change.

Muhammad Ali and Me is a lyrical coming of age story, following the parallel struggles of a gay girl child growing up in foster care and the black Muslim boxing hero’s fight against racism and the Vietnam war.

APRIL 15: Special Poetry Issue of The BeZine. April, National Poetry Month in the United States, is celebrated as an international event at The BeZine. This year Contributing Editor Michael Dickel hosts and The Woven Tale Press is a partner. Poets featured include: Michael Rothenberg, Myra Schneider, Carolyn O’Connell, Terri Muuss, Dilys Wood, Liliana Negoi, Michael Dickel, Jamie Dedes, Imen Benyoub, Natasha Head and Aprilia Zank.

Notes: The Woven Tale Press offers a copy of their first Press Selected Works for free; and National Poetry Month is sponsored by the American Academy of Poets. Link HERE for activities in which you may join and to send for a free poster.

APRIL 21: Litquake Celebrates National Poetry Month at Gardenias: A Poets Supper; 1963 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94115; featured poets include Kimberly Grey, D.A. Powell, and Solmaz Sharif. Details HERE.

JULY 3 – 18:  W/rites and Rhapsodies: Israel Writing Tour
Write! Tour! Perform! Listen! Learn! Feast! With tour leaders Adeena Karasick and Michael Dickel. Registration deadline: 15 April 2016 Link HERE Itinerary. Cost: $3,080, which does not include air fare, more details HERE. Register HERE.

SEPTEMBER 24:  is the next Global Event Day for 100,000 Poets for Change (peace, sustainability, social justice). Check out 100TPC.org for details on this initiative, to find events in your area and/or to register an event you’re organizing. Poets Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion are founders and hosts.

In honor of 100TPC, The BeZine is focusing on Environment and Environmental Justice this year. Message G Jamie Dedes on Facebook if you want to join our ongoing Facebook discussion group. Our September 15 issue of The BeZine is dedicated to Environmental subjects and hosted by Associate Editor, Priscilla Galasso. On the global event day, September 24, the Zine will sponsor a virtual event with reader participation. Michael Dickel hosts.

OCTOBER 17: Under the leadership of Terri Stewart, Beguine Again founder and managing editor, will host a 100,000 Beguines for Peace event. This interfaith effort will focus on spiritual topics. Details to come from Terri in months ahead. Beguine Again and The BeZine are sister sites and The Bardo Group Beguines support and often contribute to both sites. Terri Stewart is a Methodist Minister. Her popular Daily Practice posts on Beguine Again feature poetry, art and music to address timely topics in a conscious and prayerful manner.

OCTOBER 20-23: The 30th Annual Dodge Poetry Festival, the largest poetry festival in the United States will be held in Newark, New Jersey. Details HERE. Readings from past festivals are archived on YouTube HERE.

12523073_1671505789771540_1144084924930641637_nSAN FRANCISCO JAPAN TOWN 2016, 110th Anniversary: This is one of the only three remaining Japan towns in the United States. Events are scheduled throughout the year to celebrate culture and history. Of special interest are photographic displays, a book launch, a concert and performing arts nights. Details HERE.

THE POET BY DAY

TESTIMONY:  

“Here be inspiration. There are blogs and there are blogs. There is writing; there is poetry; there is art; there is human endeavour and there is ‘The Poet by Day’. Rarely, if ever, have I come across a web log like this, of such towering integrity. Seldom have I encountered such a willingness to subjugate self for the benefit not only of the art of the written word, but also for the benefit of poets and writers everywhere. Here be a deep well of inspiration.” Poet, essayist and musician: John Anstie (My Poetry Library)

MISSION STATEMENT:

  • to honor the place of poetry in our lives;
  • to acknowledge good poets, both established and emerging;
  • to encourage poetry for social and environmental justice;
  • to shine a light on women and minority poets and poets just finding their voices in maturity;
  • to encourage you in your writing and provide helpful information and resources;
  • to have fun, to laugh, to feel good … and to cry when that’s needed.

Disclosure

 

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HEADS-UP LITTLE ROCK: Literary Pub or Perish, April 16th

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April 16, 7-9 pm. 

Stickyz Rock N’ Roll Chicken Shack
107 River Market Avenue
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201

This event is part of the Little Rock, Arkansas Annual Literary Festival.

SHARON FRYE is a poet from Northern Oklahoma. When not delivering the mail, she enjoys writing about those she meets along the way. Whether it’s the cashier at the Dollar Store or the man giving her a pedicure- she tries to see the person behind the persona. She hopes her words might cause you too, to look more closely at the people you pass each day. Sharon is a frequent guest poet with The BeZine and she was on the short-list for the Blackwater Poetry Prize (Ireland).

AYARA STEIN is the former editor of the arts quarterly Gypsy Blood Review, she’s published in Verse Wisconsin, The Mayo Review, Ping Pong: The Journal of the Henry Miller Library and The Delinquent (UK), she is comfortable in the company of academics and outlaws.

SILVA ZANOYAN MERJANIAN is a widely published poet residing in California. She has two volumes of poetry Uncoil a Night (2013) and Rumor (Cold River Press, 2015). Rumor won Pinnacle Book Achievement Award by NABE for Fall 2015 and Silva has 3 poems from Rumor nominated for Pushcart award. Silva is a frequent guest poet with The BeZine.

RJ LOONEY will share his poems that are inspired by his experiences growing up in rural Arkansas, conversations in bars, and life in general. He is the author of A Crow’s Breakfast: Poems from The Low Road. He wears glasses when he needs them and generally avoids tucking in his shirttail.

Tennessee writer DONNIE LAMON came to the Big Apple four years ago to make a name for himself, and instead made a ministry. He lost his own name but found the names of hundreds of those unnamed and uncounted. Five Loaves and Shoeleather distributes care packages to the homeless on the streets of New York. His latest book is The Cardboard Gospel.

MH CLAY is a poet, playwright and musician, active in the Dallas spoken word scene. He is the Poetry Editor for Mad Swirl. He’s excited to carry on the creative conversation that will ensue among all the poets and patrons who come to Little Rock.

and

Justin Booth, Event Host
Justin Booth, Event Host

Outlaw Poet JUSTIN BOOTH will share some of his gritty southern goth poetry and prose, as well as introduce to Central Ar, an amazing group of writers he has met while traveling to share his own work. He is the author of four poetry collections including The Singer, The Lesbian, and The One with the Feet.