Anahit’s Legacy by Vladimir Mkrtchian

Anahit’s Legacy

After Peter Balakian’s “Head of Anahit/British Museum”

For Anush Apetyan

You said anyone could walk in

even with a sword buried underneath

a charade of a chest, past rows

of people, ruins and idols

immortalized in perfect interim clay

skeletons, plated in lush bronze

and dusted in an airy serpentine

Years could unfold into centuries

and wrap history’s carriage as

precise drapery, only to

lose it all in a second

to invade to break

to ravish to rape

My head is lost at the crossroads of tradition and change

late July, between the dewy crossfire of

brimmed pots and pans spilling Vardavar water

between the local symphony of the capers

of one soft street cat and another

testy cur, I sat in the apricot tree’s shade

branded with the Kerkhach, my wrist

adorned with Nazar beads tied with a silver cross

Who would have seen it coming

the Autumn I left

she sickened into critical condition, every day a reminder:

a beckoning bulletin of another

Armenian, Yazidi, Atheist,

man or woman, dead by proxy;

beheaded, raped, mutilated,

a thousand stones would have been more humane

Nestled soundly in the American dream

it all seems so far, I pretend to forget it

through the grandeur played off every church Sunday

every party, every barbecue, every shower

is as good as it once was there

But my mind circles back to the lucky

soldier on the 100-dram bus, the way

he sat, legs glued to each other, clad in

dusty military wear as green as the most

tattered mountain greens, the way his

hands gripped space, his arms—nonexistent

Today strife like this is only natural; from the myriad of

relics barely stuffed behind the British Museum’s walls

to the postmodern fetishes of ancient culture,

Anahit—who lives in the guise of Aphrodite

next to the corpses of caryatids: a token of a once-great empire

stands there—fragmented—her nose as august as ever

and her gilded air glittered with life and granite

trapped in a glass cage, miles from home

sold for her Hellenic grace, her magnetism, her artistry

but not for the gentle cracks that swallow her face

Vladimir Mkrtchian is a sixteen-year-old student attending Wellington C. Mepham High School on Long Island. Mkrtchian writes in English, Armenian, and French and is pursuing a Seal of Biliteracy in the French language. He won several regional and district-wide writing contests, earning an honorable mention at the Walt Whitman Birthplace 2023 Student Poetry Contest, and publication of his works in his school’s literary magazine, Fragments. Currently, he is an assistant teacher at the Holy Martyrs Armenian Language School in Queens, New York—teaching the Armenian language to Nursery students while also writing monthly issues on behalf of the school in the church’s newsletter, Narrec. He continues to write today, sharing his Armenian-influenced works with his teachers, friends, and the district in hopes of spreading awareness and bridging the gap between American and Armenian communities.

This poem was originally published on YAPA partner h-pem’s website.

Raffi Wartanian on Vladimir Mkrtchian’s “Anahit’s Legacy” (Winner):

“Through structure and theme, Peter Balakian’s “Head of Anahit/British Museum” inspired the poet of “Anahit’s Legacy” to craft a work ripe with imagery, insight, and relevance to the horrifying present moment as the murderous petro-dictatorship in Baku is, in real time, subjecting indigenous Armenians in Artsakh to a genocide—subcontracted from Ankara, approved by Moscow, ignored by Washington and Brussels, perpetrated with impunity. “Nestled soundly in the American dream / it all seems so far, I pretend to forget it,” writes the poet, grappling with the distance afforded by America’s nightmare of doublespeak marketed deceptively as a worthwhile dream. Amnesia, the writer suggests, is make-believe; the “it” of human barbarity—“Armenian, Yazidi, Atheist, / man or woman, dead by proxy; / beheaded, raped, mutilated”—transcends forgetfulness, for the past is present. Today’s Armenian nightmare is conjured through the poet’s words—“Years could unfold into centuries / and wrap history’s carriage as / precise drapery, only to / lose it all in a second / to invade to break / to ravish to rape.” These prescient lines, likely written during the nine-month blockade of Artsakh but before the latest military invasion since September 19, 2023, gesture to the current ravish and rape of innocents in Artsakh, of children murdered in Martakert, mothers slaughtered in Nerkin Horatagh, elders burned alive in Stepanakert, an entire Armenian republic wiped off the map, lost in a second. As a cadre of oligarchs, technocrats, and do-nothing bureaucrats push the “civilized” world further into a hyper normalized state of mass delusion, the poet reminds us that the closest we might get to recognition is to perform as the exotic ethnic thing to be compared to some other greater symbol of erudition, like “Anahit–who lives in the guise of Aphrodite.” Here, we read the words of an insightful young poet who is manifesting what Peter Balakian has oft recounted as the power in poetry and writing to bear witness.”

Raffi Joe Wartanian is a writer, musician, and educator who teaches writing at UCLA and currently serves as the inaugural Poet Laureate in the City of Glendale, California. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, University of Texas Press, Miami Herald, The Baltimore Sun, Lapham’s Quarterly, Outside Magazine, and elsewhere; and his poetry has appeared in The Los Angeles Press, No Dear Magazine, Ararat Magazine, and beyond. Raffi has taught writing to veterans at the Manhattan VA, incarcerated writers at Rikers Island, youth in Armenia, and undergraduates at Columbia University, where he earned an MFA in Writing. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from The Fulbright Program, Eurasia Partnership Foundation, and Humanity in Action. A multi-instrumentalist, composer, lyricist, and singer-songwriter, Raffi has performed internationally and released two full-length albums of original music. Raffi is the proud grandson and great-grandson of Armenian Genocide survivors, the son of Armenian parents from Lebanon, and, with his siblings, the first generation in his family to be born in the United States, in the great city of Baltimore. Raffi founded Letters for Peace in 2017 and currently serves on the advisory board of the International Armenian Literary Alliance.