My Father, Zareh Melkonian (1922-2012)
A torrent of creativity streamed through Zareh Melkonian’s entire life. He was an inspirational teacher and orator and a prolific poet, playwright, and author of Armenian language textbooks. He was also a contributor of myriad essays in the Armenian press and literary magazines primarily on literature, culture and life of Armenians in the Diaspora.
It can be said that Zareh Melkonian’s creativity and writings are rooted in reality. He was unapologetic in expressing things as he observed and experienced them. If some of his writings scratched an itch that inflamed some readers, it was for the better. His intention was always to engage in honest and difficult discourse on issues that mattered.
In paying tribute to my father, I think of him primarily as a master teacher and poet. His poetry sometimes sings sweetly and deeply of love, beauty and youth. Often it reveals hard truths about the human condition and deals with matters of man, God and the universe, and sometimes it simply captures the mundane. He is both a philosophical and a lyrical poet. In the final analysis, however, it is his love affair with the Armenian language that makes both his poetry and prose so exquisite and distinctive.
Poetry
Selecting from among hundreds of my father’s poems for inclusion here was a fascinating yet challenging process. I hope to have succeeded in presenting, from an expansive body of works spanning over six decades, his poetic voice and sensibilities. I am thankful to Alec Ekmekji for translating several of the works below for you to sample.
