Hmayeak Shems A Poet of Pure Spirit

by Baladouni, Vahé; Gery, John

• ISBN13: 9780761850540
• ISBN10: 0761850546
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-04-02
• Publisher: UPA

Summary

This book presents the life and writings of Armenian poet Hmayeak Shems (1896-1952). The Armenian Genocide of 1915 devastated Shems, who lost his family and home and wandered for years in exile. Yet from debilitating isolation, Shems found a lyrical mastery of Armenian identity and modern spirit. Illuminated by his poetry, this biography chronicles his travels, encounters, and thought to reveal a more compelling and complete portrait of Shems than previously known.

Author Biography

Vah Baladouni has contributed to a number of Middle Eastern Armenian literary periodicals, and translated the poetry and prose of writers such as Shakespeare, Shelley, and Wilde into Armenian in Translations (1973). He compiled and edited Hmayeak Shems: entir Erker [Hmayeak Shems: Select Works] (1994); translated (with John Gery) Shems's prose poems into English, For the House of Torkom (1999); and helped publish several of Shems's works in Erevan, Armenia, (2001-2004). John Gery has published five volumes of poetry, most recently A Gallery of Ghosts (2008), and has written extensively on modern and contemporary poetry, including the books Contemporary American Poetry and Nuclear Annihilation: Ways of Nothingness (1996) and (with others) In Venice and in the Veneto with Ezra Pound (2007). He has co-translated works from Serbian, Chinese, Armenian, and French, is professor of literature and creative writing at the University of New Orleans, and directs the Ezra Pound Center for Literature at Brunnenburg, Italy.

Table of Contents

List of Photographs	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Reference Key	p. xv
A Chronology of Hmayeak Shems	p. xvii
A Diasporan Journey: Cities Where Shems Visited and Lived	p. xix
Student, Rebel, and Wandering Dervish: From Trabzon to the Caucasus and the Balkans	p. 1
Prologue: Shems, the Dervish-"that Hapless, Tattered Nobleman"	p. 1
Growing Up in Trabzon	p. 4
A Turbulent Secondary School Education	p. 7
Heading for Ejmiatsin and Erevan	p. 12
First Teaching Appointment	p. 14
The Day the Sun Darkened: the Armenian Genocide of 1915	p. 15
The Aftershock	p. 17
A Reunion of Survivors	p. 21
A Voice from the Depths of the Soul	p. 22
Poet, Scholar, Orator, and Teacher: Alexandria	p. 29
Making Sense of His New Environment	p. 29
Flight to Paris	p. 36
Moment of Truth	p. 37
Two Publications: Roshnakan and Sayat' Nova	p. 43
Chashka Chaï: Around a Cup of Tea	p. 45
Repatriation: Depi erkir [Homeward Bound!]	p. 48
Serving the Word and Poetry	p. 49
The Passion that Chose Shems	p. 57
His Waning Years	p. 60
Epilogue: Hmayeak Shems-this Man, this Poet	p. 64
"A Portrait of Hmayeak Shems"	p. 69
"The Hmayeak Shems I Knew"	p. 75
An Undated Draft Letter to Levon Hovhannesian Written	p. 79
Notes	p. 83
Acronyms and Abbreviations	p. 93
Selected Bibliography	p. 95
Index	p. 99
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