Saturday, November 23, 2024

Village Poets Will Celebrate 2025 with Poets Shahé Mankerian and Jackie Chou on Sunday, January 26

 

 

Village Poets will celebrate the New Year with Armenian-American poet, Shahé Mankerian and Los Angeles poet, Jackie Chou, for an exciting presentation on Sunday, January 27 at 4:30 pm at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, CA.

There will also be an open mic, so please bring your best poems to participate.

The Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91040. Bolton Hall is a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913. Our reading starts at 4:30 pm and goes till 6:30 pm

Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School in Pasadena, CA, and the director of mentorship at the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). He previously served as co-director of the Los Angeles Writing Project and is a recipient of the Los Angeles Music Center’s BRAVO Award for innovation in arts education. Mankerian’s debut poetry collection, History of Forgetfulness, was published in 2021 by Fly on the Wall Press (UK). The collection was a semifinalist for the Khayrallah Prize and a finalist for the Bibby First Book Competition, the Crab Orchard Poetry Open Competition, the Julie Suk Award, the Quercus Review Press Poetry Book Award, and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize.

Three Poems by Shahé Mankerian

After the First Rain

A sparrow visits our front lawn.

Her feet sink deep into the mud.

In rows, neighbors cultivate

perfect roses, African irises,

pergolas full of morning glories—

We’ve discolored their street

with harsh immigrant landscape:

puddles of mosquitos, dehydrated

apricot trees, and hollowed vases.

On his bicycle, a freckled face

newspaper boy tosses The Los

Angeles Times at hydrangeas

and chrysanthemums but skips

our oil-stained driveway. Before

going to the bakery, Father steps

on the porch and praises the passing

 rain for washing his Chevrolet. Like

discovering pearl, the sparrow pulls

 a gleaming worm from the steam

of our neglected soil and devours it.

Published in  Taos Journal of Poetry | Issue 13 | November 2023.

Show & Tell

         To Lucille Clifton

 José lifted a rabbit from a corroded cage

and said, “This is Jesús. We found him

sleeping among the dead daffodils.”

 

Elizabeth asked us to cover our ears

“Because Beethoven was deaf,” she said

as “Ode to Joy” squeaked on her violin.

 

I clapped the loudest because on the first

day of school Liz braided my shoelaces

with hers. Mrs. Honzay poked my forearm

 

with a pen, “Settle down,” she whispered.

Sweaty Mika wore his father’s space suit.

Selma uttered from her wobbly desk,

 

“He even smells like an alien.” When I stood

in front of the blackboard, nauseous,

with nothing fancy to share, I raised

 

my trembling hands shoulder high.

“I was born with twelve fingers,” I said,

“and I have the scars to prove it.”

Published in Contemporary Verse 2 | Summer 2024 | Vol. 47 Issue No. 1

Khachaturian in Beirut

On my 6th birthday, Father clenched an imaginary

sword and marched around the living room

to the rapid beats of the Sabre Dance.

 

Outside, the Lebanese Civil War raged as tanks

smashed through abandoned cars. Inside,

Father jumped on the lopsided sofa

 

and shouted, “Son, this is Aram Khachaturian!

The greatest living composer from Armenia.”

Dead bodies bloated below our balcony,

 

but I fancied Khachaturian in a cape, a red

plume on the helmet, and a magical shield

that protected children from wayward bullets.

 

Father raised the volume of the turntable

right before the staccato of xylophones silenced

the screaming hostage in the nearby alley.

 Published in TAB Journal, Volume 11, 2023

 

© 2024 Shahé Mankerian

 


                                                   

Jackie Chou is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee whose poem "Formosa" was a finalist in the 2023 Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize. Her work has also appeared recently in The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply Zine, Synchronized Chaos, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Lee Herrick's Our California project. Her two collections of poetry, Finding My Heart in Love and Loss and the Sorceress, published by cyberwit in 2023, can be found on Amazon.

 Three Poems by Jackie Chou

Losing You

I lose you

like a jacaranda tree shedding 

its purple trumpet flowers

 

In losing you, I lose myself 

parts of you 

that became parts of me

the laughter 

the gestures

the candlelight in the eyes

 

I lose you

though I have already lost you

a million times

in small daily fragments 

a memory here 

a photograph there

 

Soon my heart 

will be bereft of you

like debris 

and leaves

swept away by a breeze 

 

I lose you

like pieces of a mosaic 

falling one by one

until the last seashell 

hits the floor 

with a final clonk

First published by Synchronized Chaos, August 2024

At the End of the Day

Our day ends when it is time to part

My lids fall with the curtain of night

For darkened dreams, I depart

 

To the milky sky my black horse darts

Deep in slumber, I'm my own knight

Our day ends when it is time to part

 

To chase joy, a forgotten art

I must with my own demons fight

For darkened dreams, I depart

 

The surreal realm has made me smart

To defeat the darkness with my light

Our day ends when it is time to part

 

Like everything is free, I load my cart

Pushing its weight with all my might

For darkened dreams, I depart

 

In separate worlds, we're apart

My lone pursuits bring no plight

Our day ends when it is time to part

For darkened dreams, I depart

First published by Lothlorien Poetry Journal, April 2024

 

Formosa

 

Your breath awakens me
to an isle of swaying palms
and loosed ankles.
You dance in the shadows
of crisp-winged butterflies,
auspicious like a yellow kitten,
prodding your ideologies into my head,
your brown hair tousled in the breeze,
ambition glowing in your pupils.
Your musical notes cross my stave,
your fingers bent at the right angles,
holding chopsticks with dexterity,
in night markets of neon boulevards,
where omelets are flipped and mice thrive,
your eyes locking with mine,
in our shared landscape.

 

Finalist in the Stephen A Dibiase Poetry Prize 2023

 

© 2024  Jackie Chou


                                                                                Photo by Lois P. Jones



 

 


 

 

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