Lory Bedikian: California Poets Part 8, Two Poems

Lory Bedikian

January 8th, 2025

California Poets: Part VIII

Lory Bedikian

Two Poems

Copy That

This is an accurate statement: I have never liked

or loved the word “artificial.” Mother adjusts

the small-print in the kitchen’s dim light to read

a color number this and another color number

that. Father says that these foods will some day

make us all sick. But mother hands him the bag

regardless. Faces artificial in structure are starting

to scare me. Boo! Nothing. Quick, run! Nothing.

The forehead stays the same. The lips can barely

speak. I don’t judge, so I don’t ask the person

to say balderdash or disestablishmentarianism.

Yes, I review the years. I review the mentioning

of anything made by humans that would be better

made by nature or naturally. And what is natural

nowadays anyway? Naturally, I won’t answer easily.

My father was the epitome of intelligence, but it

was his own making, his own configuration, potpourri

making its medley of philosophy, pistachio, big liars,

lavash bread cut into perfect squares because there

was nothing else to do on Saturday or Sunday

mornings but control and distribute portions of bread

to himself and maybe his wife, maybe this took

the place of once cutting slices of wonder bread into

dice-cube-sizes for the communion tray, the fake

wine (grape juice). A man who was once a minister

always remains a man of God, even when he has

given up on the nature of man, on the intelligence

level of the world, its leaders and pathetic followers,

is there any natural way to rid ourselves of this anger?

Maybe it needs to naturally dissolve. Maybe we need

to take artificial means and rub it a bit in the dirt

to remember the holy earth, not mother or father

nature, but the first breath of all kept momentarily

holy before we ruin it like we’ve ruined everything else.

Blue Evil Eye Blues

“jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/The meat it feeds on.” — Shakespeare

Once I dated the green-eyed monster

and we got along quite well. That is

until I began plucking their chest hairs

to stuff a pillow I named Evan the Great.

They made it obvious that not only

were they feeding on me, but mocking

themselves and me simultaneously,

while bad-mouthing behind the back,

borrowing my empty wallet and name,

lovingly making fun of the way I cry

into the ripped sleeves of an old sweater

that was once a rug, then a blanket

I once used to cover them after we made

up, after the hell of fighting had settled

into chamomile, crackers and peanuts.

I love the color green. Trees, broccoli,

the leaf I kept in my pocket the whole

way home. Raw, shelled almonds.

When we broke up, my husband

said, admit it, I’m way better than…

told me about philosophers, held

my hand, saying turn the page, turn

bitterness into alabaster and rum shots.

I keep pointing to them from about

two hundred feet. My husband grabs

my shoulders and says look what you

just missed. Now we have to wait

in line again. We were about to get on.

Interview

April 26th, 2025

California Poets Interview Series:

Lory Bedikian, Poet, Educator

interviewed by David Garyan

DG: I’d like to begin with the immigrant experience that informs so much of your work, particularly the latest collection Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body. Can you talk a bit about the writing process, its transliterated Armenian title, along with the three main sections, and also whether, in general, you see writing as a form of healing?

LB: Thank you, David. Well, I view Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body as a tribute to my immigrant parents, an extended elegy to both parental figures as well as a self-elegy to a daughter of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria, both being of Armenian descent. The aspect of elegizing the self comes into play when the poems discuss disease, illness, particularly the diagnosis and management of having Multiple Sclerosis. The first part of the title “Jagadakeer,” means “fate” or “destiny” in the Armenian language. The fifth section of the book is a poetic sequence “Jagadakeer: In Remission” which discusses the concept of “jagadakeer,” fate, destiny, and the literal translation is “the writing on the forehead.” I do view writing as a form of healing, like all art forms. I believe that when the artist tackles the challenge of funneling damage or despair into a creative construct there is potentially transformation which takes place, whether that be the artwork itself or the empowerment of taking what once made us feel weak/impaired to feeling courageous or capable of communicating levels of self-realization.

DG: The Book of Lamenting also features Armenian themes, having been inspired by a trip you took there in 1997. There are certainly thematic links between your first collection and Jagadakeer, but the two are also very different—both in terms of tone and approach. Do you see these changes as being a product of poetic sensibilities or rather a rethinking of the immigrant experiences during these past fifteen years?

LB: I really appreciate this question and observation because the two books, although often dealing with similar themes absolutely take on different tonal registers, attitudes and approaches. I like to think of it this way: with the first book, as a debut poet, I was careful, often afraid of exposing too much. During the process of putting together Jagadakeer, I was allowing attitudes and personality to guide diction or persona. To be completely transparent, I thought of my parents reading the first book and wanting the poems to be souvenirs, documents, memorials. With the second collection, since the passing of both parents informs most of the book, I not only allowed room for familial analysis, but also poem-voices to emerge that I may have kept hidden due to cultural confines, particularly ways of expression that were frowned upon if one is writing from a female’s perspective. After a decade of many losses, the dive into full-time motherhood, and so much that can’t really be listed here, much changes in a poet, person, woman, human being of the world. And it all comes out in the work.

DG: You’ve done poetry workshops across LA and online. How have those influenced your writing and how do you usually structure your classes?

LB: Facilitating workshops is one the greatest highlights of the poetry journey. I wish I could teach poetry on a daily basis. I think that may be one of my regrets, that I was not able to obtain a PhD earlier on so that I could be more marketable as a teacher/instructor/professor. I love facilitating workshops because it makes me look at writing through the discussions we have when we are all at the drawing board. I love to present poems, ideas and then see what we come up with — differing analyses, reactions, loving one line over another and why, etc. I learn every time I run a workshop. I feel fortunate, selfish. I want participants to feel the same. When the workshops are generative I like to begin immediately with a prompt, to get the body-mind started, before introductions and too much talk. Then we get into introductions, etc. We always start with reading poems, discussing what we like, what bores us, what inspires us and what we want to accomplish. We write until it hurts, until it feels like we’ve pushed ourselves further than we usually do. If it’s a workshop for constructive criticism, we stay quiet and listen to what readers respond to and their “wishes” for future drafts, because no poem is ever truly “finished.”

DG: Rejection is a big part of every writer’s life. Some print them out and pin them on the wall; some delete them right away; some turn them into poems; some cry over them. How do you deal with the dilemma and to what extent do you revise after each rejection?

LB: Oh, it depends on how much coffee I’ve had, how loud I can laugh and the list goes on! I really have changed the way I look at rejection after all these years. I hate that this may sound aloof or egotistical, but most of the time, nowadays, I think, oh that’s unfortunate. This was a really great piece. I can’t wait to see who takes it!

DG: You live and work in Los Angeles and this is the city where you’ve firmly established your base. Can you talk about how LA has shaped not only your writing, but with its multicultural aspect also you as a person in general? And what are your favorite places in the city—both literary and not?

LB: I never thought I would stay in Los Angeles, but I’ve really grown to love it here and love calling it home. I love that I can meet people from so many places, who have come here as my parents once did, to make a new life, a safer life than what they had, while holding on to what makes each of us unique. I love that there are all types of food. I love the chefs, the cooks, the people who courageously open restaurants, eateries, food stands across the counties. I love the bookstores, the busy reading schedules and wish I could keep up with the literary scene on the weekends!

DG: Though all of your work draws upon some kind of personal experience, there are pieces you wrote during the pandemic that hit really close to home. Can you talk about that period and how this different form of isolation affected the nuances of your craft?

LB: As a mother of young children, my belief was that the best place to be at a young age is under a tree, playing with dirt, rocks, twigs and so I never had the kids in front of the TV, computers, cell phones, etc. Actually, the one request I had before our children were born is that we completely cancel television — and we did. So, imagine the heartbreak that not only was kindergarten taken away, but suddenly I was an unpaid teacher assistant (like most of the world), and had to teach our young children how to “go to school” on a computer. Like most, I was angry, malnourished, exhausted and had to work at nights when everyone had gone to bed. Sure, there are always blessings, but I really hated those years. My mother passed away on March 5, 2020 just as the pandemic began, the kids were sent home and everyone was fighting over toilet paper. I caught the first wave of Covid and was on a nebulizer for nine days. I had just watched my mother die from lung cancer, her last breaths through a ventilating machine. Poetry wasn’t a hobby, or habit, but a way to survive potential madness.

DG: In a 2019 interview with Ahdenae Khodaverdian for Woodbury’s Moria magazine, you mentioned injustice as the primary source of inspiration for your poetry. These next years will be difficult ones. How do you feel about the future and the pieces you’ll write?

LB: I am extremely hopeful for the future, because I still believe in love and the human spirit. Sometimes I can’t believe the things I say. It’s easier to be a pessimist, but I won’t allow myself. I want to write something that will allow someone younger than me to think, that’s nothing. I’ve got something even better.

DG: Let’s return to the Armenian language. Many cultures have words that are either near-untranslatable or untranslate outright. Italian, for example, makes distinctions between different levels of physical contact not found in English—the standard toccare is our touch, but there also exists sfiorare, the light touch. They also have a term called abbiòcco—for all intents and purposes untranslatable, mainly because its meaning can only be captured with a definition: The sleepy feeling you get after lunch. What are your favorite Armenian words that likewise capture sentiments difficult to transmit in English?

LB: Oh, I love this question and only wish my father was here to join in the conversation. Like my father, I love the compound words of the Armenian language. I love that the word “zoo,” in Armenian is (I believe) an 8-syllable word that translates to “the garden where the animals live” or something close to that. Gehn-tahn-ah-pahn-ah-gahn-bardez. I love the beautiful compound words like potato, kednakhntsor, or “apple of the ground.” Then there’s olive or tseetahbdoogh, or “fruit of oil.” This list can go on for a very long time!

DG: There’s a fascinating word in Old-English called dustsceawung, literally translated as “the contemplation of dust.” Some poets have given their own definitions, though non-fiction writer Adam Nicolson provides what I feel is the best one: “the daydream of a mind strung between past and present.” Dust, indeed, is merely of product of other things, even places having been—whether simple objects or civilizations. Do you see poetry as a resistance to all matters withering—forgotten books on the shelf, memories needing to be kept alive, fading traditions?

LB: If I could answer this I would be perhaps much further along my poetry journey. As a poet we are always contemplating the innocence of dust on the shelf along with the dust left from destruction and harm. One means that things have been untouched, the other type of dust has energy in it. It was meant to be one thing and was left as an evil after-thought to what once lived, moved. Poetry, art is a form of resistance to not only withering, but of silence whether we choose the silence or not. When we write it is an act of saying we are here, despite, we are here, regardless. The cave writings, the prison walls, the stalls of Ellis Island. The mother’s napkin in her purse that she has not thrown out for years. What is she holding on to, but a part of her voice that matters, though it seems it never will?

DG: What are you reading or working on at the moment?

LB: I am working on my third book, which should have been my 5th or 7th, but we all have different roads. I’m still trying to figure out if I did things wrong, right or if I should finally stop comparing myself to others my age. I love what I’m reading now: Primordial by Mai Der Vang, and rereading Beyond the Watershed by Nadia Alexis and If Nothing by Matthew Nienow.

Author Bio:

Lory Bedikian’s second book Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body won the 2023 Prairie Schooner/Raz-Shumaker Book Prize in Poetry, published by the University of Nebraska Press. Her first collection The Book of Lamenting won the Philip Levine Prize in Poetry. Several of Bedikian’s poems received the First Prize Award in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry as part of the 2022 Nimrod Literary Awards. She teaches poetry workshops in Los Angeles and elsewhere.