Poetry Workshop
by George Kalogeris
i.m. Diana Der-Hovanessian
When I read my poem about Mr Harotian,
The quiet leader of our high school band,
And how his son was always encouraging me
To take up the bugle, and though I never did
His immigrant father reminded me of mine,
With his tender aura of serious melancholy:
My father, who was not Armenian,
And not a musician, but who must have known
A thousand village songs, and many of which
Went back to the Turkokratía: it was those songs
My workshop teacher recognized as soon
As I quoted one, and said she could almost hear
The sound of instruments from Asia Minor.
Bouzouki. Oud. Clarino. Duduk. Music
Whose harrowing tunes our Mr Harotian knew,
But never conducted with his strict baton
As the marching band performed at football games.
Trumpet. Trombone. Tuba. Snare Drum. Cymbals.
The Winthrop Vikings. Turkokratía. Where was I?
At the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
Diana was reading her austere translation
Of a lyric poem by Daniel Varoujan:
One of those two hundred fifty Armenian
Scholars and artists who were rounded up first.
Diana Der-Hovanessian. Just saying
Her name again it chimes with dispossession,
And tolls me back to those songs my father sang.
Copyright © 2018 by George Kalogeris.