Tag: Armenian literature

Recent talks by Dr. Jesse Arlen (recordings & photos)

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Two recordings of recent public talks by Dr. Jesse Arlen are now available to view along with a gallery of photos.

On Sunday, April 26th Dr. Arlen delivered remarks at the annual commemoration of the Armenian Genocide in Times Square on the theme “Creating Culture in Diaspora,” where he reflected on the past and present of the Armenian American community and imagined a new future, with allusions to diasporas from Armenia’s medieval past. A recording of his remarks are below and a recording of the full event is available here.

On April 9th, Dr. Arlen spoke at the NAASR headquarters in Belmont, MA on the life and significance of his late sister Tenny Arlen’s poetry, whose posthumous volume, To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? (Կիրքով ըսելու՝ ինչո՞ւ հոս եմ) is the first full-length volume of creative literature published in the Armenian language by an American-born author.

On April 12th, Dr. Arlen gave a similar presentation at St. Mary Armenian Church in Washington, DC. A gallery of select photos from the event is available to view below while the full collection of photos is accessible here.

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Jesse Arlen’s Poem featured in Academy of American Poets “Poem-a-Day” Series

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Jesse Arlen’s bilingual poem “𓆭 [Tree]” was featured as today’s “Poem-a-Day” by the Academy of American Poets.

The poem is part of a collaboration between the AAP and Raffi Joe Wartanian, spotlighting poets writing and translating from Western Armenian. Wartanian, poet laureate of Glendale, California, received a 2025 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.

Read the poem in English and Western Armenian on the Academy of American Poets website (poets.org). There you can also listen to Jesse Arlen reading the poem in English and Armenian.

About this Poem

“This poem is from my forthcoming bilingual book of poetry, entitled Մեհենագիրք / Book of Hieroglyphs, which narrates the birth and maturation of a poet from an all-but-extinct civilization and literary tradition. Each poem in the book follows a letter of the Armenian alphabet and an Egyptian hieroglyph, whose symbolic meaning generates the poem. This poem, after the hieroglyph 𓆭, ‘Ծառ / Tree’ is the first in the fourth and final cycle of the book, entitled ‘Անհատը զարմէն / The Individual from the Clan,’ where the subject matter turns to the ancestors of the poet in the land from which they were exiled.” – Jesse Arlen

Lectures by Dr. Jesse Arlen at Harvard & NAASR (hybrid)

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Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen will deliver talks today and tomorrow at Harvard University and NAASR. Both are open to the public and the NAASR presentation on Thursday is a hybrid event with the option to Zoom (see registration link below).

“Heresy and Excommunication in Tenth-Century Armenia: Hierarchs, Abbots, Monks, and Tondrakites.”

Wednesday, April 8th, 4:30pm at Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Room 304, 6 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Mashtots Chair of Armenian Studies, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Center for the Study of World Religions, and the Committee on Medieval Studies.

An Evening of Poetry with Dr. Jesse Arlen:
Tenny Arlen’s To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?

Thursday, April 9th, 7:30pm at NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA.
Co-sponsored by the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and The Belmont Public Library
Zoom Registration Link: https://bit.ly/4soKyhn
NAASR YouTube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/c/ArmenianStudies 

Upcoming Talks by Dr. Jesse Arlen in Boston & Washington, DC (including hybrid online)

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In early April, Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen will travel to the Boston area then Washington, DC to give the following three talks, at Harvard University, NAASR, and St. Mary Armenian Church. All of the talks are open to the public. The NAASR event is a hybrid event (see registration link below for online Zoom option).

“Heresy and Excommunication in Tenth-Century Armenia: Hierarchs, Abbots, Monks, and Tondrakites.”

Wednesday, April 8th, 4:30pm at Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Room 304, 6 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Mashtots Chair of Armenian Studies, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Center for the Study of World Religions, and the Committee on Medieval Studies.

An Evening of Poetry with Dr. Jesse Arlen:
Tenny Arlen’s To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?

Thursday, April 9th, 7:30pm at NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA.
Co-sponsored by the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and The Belmont Public Library
Zoom Registration Link: https://bit.ly/4soKyhn
NAASR YouTube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/c/ArmenianStudies 

Creating Culture in Diaspora:
The Poetry of Tenny Arlen (1991–2015)

Sunday, April 12th, after Badarak at St. Mary Armenian Church, 4125 Fessenden St. NW, Washington, DC.

REMINDER: TONIGHT! Poetry Workshop with Live Music with Lola Koundakjian, Jesse Arlen, Raffi Joe Wartanian, & Alexander Sasha Hakobyan

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Tonight the Zohrab Center is hosting a poetry workshop with Quarter Tone Poets, an initiative directed by poet Raffi Wartanian dedicated to innovative literary expression in Western Armenian and exploring the musicality of language and the linguistic possibilities discovered through music.

On Tuesday, March 3rd, at 7:00pm in the newly renovated Park View Room at the Diocesan Center, New York poet Lola Koundakjian will engage in a conversation on the craft of writing poetry with Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and then participants will have a chance to write their own original poetry, guided by prompts while live music is being performed by Raffi Wartanian (oud) and Alexander Sasha Hakobyan (guitar).

Don’t miss this one-of-a kind event!

For more info on this initiative, visit https://www.quartertonepoets.org/workshops

Upcoming Talks in the Tri-State Area by Zohrab Center Director Dr. Jesse Arlen

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This weekend Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen will give two presentations as part of parish Lenten programming in the Tri-State area.

On Friday, February 20th, following the 7:30pm Lenten vigil at St. Leon Armenian Church in Fair Lawn, NJ and then on Sunday, February 22nd, following Badarak, at St. Gregory the Enlightener Armenian Church in White Plains, NY.

His presentations will introduce the life and poetry of Tenny Arlen, whose 2021 book of verse Կիրքով ըսելու՝ ինչո՞ւ հոս եմ (To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?) (Yerevan: ARI Literature Foundation) marked a watershed moment in the Armenian literary tradition, being the first full-length volume of creative literature published in Armenian by an American-born writer.

In 2025, a bilingual (English and Armenian) language edition was published by Tarkmaneal Press, along with afterwords by Hagop Gulludjian and Arthur Ipek.

In consonance with the season of Great Lent, Dr. Arlen will reflect on the some of the spiritual themes in Tenny’s poetry, such as solitude, iconic seeing, and the transcendence and immanence of the ineffable realm of the spirit.

Hear the Prayer of St. Nersess Shnorhali in 24 languages!

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Under the initiative of Fr. Hovhan Khoja-Eynatyan of St. James of Nisibis Armenian Church in Evanston, IL and dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the parish and 850th anniversary of St. Nersess Shnorhali, a video was produced entitled “Together at His Table: Different Voices, One Heart,” in which the famous prayer of 24 stanzas by St. Nersess Shnorhali was recited by 24 different individuals, each reciting or reading successive stanzas in a different language.

Listen to the saint’s immortal words resound in multilingual beauty and look for familiar faces in the moving video available here: https://youtu.be/TTrDW_ramDQ?si=GXsHqgAmOa0jJDJ7

Poetry Workshop on March 3rd with Lola Koundakjian, Jesse Arlen, & Quarter Tone Poets

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We are looking forward to hosting a poetry workshop with Quarter Tone Poets, an initiative directed by poet Raffi Wartanian dedicated to innovative literary expression in Western Armenian and exploring the musicality of language and the linguistic possibilities discovered through music.

On Tuesday, March 3rd, at 7:00pm in the newly renovated Park View Room at the Diocesan Center, New York poet Lola Koundakjian will engage in a conversation on the craft of writing poetry with Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and then participants will have a chance to write their own original poetry, guided by prompts while live music is being performed.

Whether you are an experienced poet or interested in experimenting with writing and creative expression, you won’t want to miss this one of a kind event.

Mark your calendars and save the date!

For more info on this initiative, visit https://www.quartertonepoets.org/workshops

Dr. Jesse Arlen leads reading of Tenny Arlen’s poetry

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On December 18, 2025, the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art hosted a reading and discussion of Tenny Arlen’s bilingual poetry collection To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?

Joining Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen as readers were his father, mother, and one of his sisters.

During the evening, San Luis Obispo poet laureate Kevin Clark – Cal Poly’s professor emeritus of English and former co-director of the university’s Creative Writing Program – reflected on Tenny’s poetry, placing her work in the tradition of Yeats, Eliot, and Rilke, all of whom, like Tenny, yearned after the ineffable dimension of Being and sought to put words to it.

Paul McCullough – teacher of literature at the San Luis Obispo Classical Academy – also offered reflections, calling Tenny’s poetry an invitation to a way of “iconic seeing” that sees “all things in God, all things shining with the original light of their creation.”

A recording of the moving program is available to view on YouTube:

 

Գրաբար Reading Course on the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ)

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The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to sign up for “Խորհուրդ Խորին / Mystery Profound,” the second half of a Գրաբար reading course to take place on Mondays 2:00–4:00pm ET from February 2nd to May 25th via Zoom.

The course will be led by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and will focus on the hymns, chants, and prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ), including hymn verses not commonly sung in contemporary practice as well as prayers of the service said silently by the celebrant.

The first part of this course covered the rite of vesting and preparation as well as the Liturgy of the Word, while the second half of the course will focus upon the Eucharistic Liturgy proper.

In order to benefit from the course, participants should be able to comfortably read the Armenian alphabet and have some prior experience with classical or modern Armenian.

Register for the course at this Zoom registration link.

For questions about the course, email zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org