To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? by Tenny Arlen

To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? is a bilingual (Armenian and English) edition of Tenny Arlen’s poetry, an extraordinary body of work written in a language she began learning only a few years before her passing in 2015. The book brings together the full contents of the 2021 Armenian publication, ԿԻՐՔՈՎ ԸՍԵԼՈՒ՝ ԻՆՉՈ՞Ւ ՀՈՍ ԵՄ, presenting the original poems alongside English translations by Tenny and her brother Dr. Jesse Arlen.

In these poems, the Armenian language itself becomes a living presence, asking why and how it continues to exist in the twenty-first-century Diaspora. With luminous sensitivity, Arlen writes toward that question, turning language into both a home and a mystery. As her brother notes, “The poet courageously faces such questions and is not satisfied by simple or superficial answers, tired clichés. Instead, in her effort to ponder them deeply, she offers meaning to others. This book presents itself as a companion to those readers who seek to think and live life’s most fundamental questions.”

This expanded edition deepens the original collection with three previously unseen writings discovered among Tenny’s papers, facsimiles of early drafts—some marked with her professor Dr. Hagop Gulludjian’s edits—and new critical reflections. Gulludjian’s afterword traces Tenny’s creative journey from eager student to a pioneer of Armenian literature in the Diaspora, while Arthur Ipek’s newly commissioned essay explores her work through the lens of exophony, or creative writing in a non-native tongue, and situates her within a broader Armenian literary continuum.

What emerges is both a work of poetry and a record of artistic becoming, a book about learning to speak, to belong, and to give voice to existence itself.

Praise for the Book

“Hauntingly beautiful poems… A sparkling mind, mature and sophisticated well beyond her youthful years. I remember Tenny as among a handful of the most brilliant students I have encountered throughout my life.” – Sebouh David Aslanian, UCLA Professor and Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History

“While respecting the classic writers, Tenny was not a slave to their style or ideas, but with that same self-confidence which was the hallmark of all her endeavors, she fashioned her own instrument to be the vessel of her thoughts. As in their own time, Zahrad and Khrakhuni opened a new path for Armenian poetry, Tenny’s creative work marks a new phase in the literary history of the Diaspora… Tenny has become a pioneer by her literary path.” – Peter Cowe, Narekatsi Professor of Armenian Studies at UCLA

“To describe Tenny Arlen as a trailblazer would be to bestow that term upon the artist without exaggerating its definition.” – David Garyan, poet, journalist, and editor of LAdige literary journal

“A watershed moment for the Armenian literary tradition… In addition to inaugurating a return to the classics of Armenian literature, this collection simultaneously ushers in a new moment for the Armenian literary tradition, in the idiom of the New World. In this New World, there are Armenian speakers who might be completely new to the language, yet may have much to contribute to the creation of works in Armenian… Both a profound soul and linguistic dexterity characterize Arlen as a poet. Her extant work is a manifestation of a poetic consciousness unique to her.” – Arthur Ipek, poet and literary scholar

“From the very beginning, Tenny attempted to create in Armenian, even when she did not understand much of the language. She understood her journey toward the language as a creative process, a means and a way to achieve selfactualization through creation… Vitality, vigor, revitalization of the language—all these things happen not by honoring it as a sacred relic, but by playing with it, wrestling, flirting, making love with it, in the words of the title of this book, by saying passionately, why am I here?” – Hagop Gulludjian, UCLA Senior Lecturer of Western Armenian, Kachigian Family Lecturer in Armenian Language and Culture

Tenny Arlen (B.A., UCLA 2013) was an author of Armenian and English poetry. Her debut book of poetry, To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? (Yerevan: ARI Press, 2021) was published posthumously and is one of the first books of creative literature written in Armenian by an American-born author. She died in a car accident in 2015 before beginning her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Dr. Jesse Arlen is the director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center at the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. His research focuses on medieval literature and religious culture. He is also a published writer and translator of Western Armenian poetry and critical and creative prose.

Published via Tarkmaneal Press (New York), To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? is now available for purchase through the NAASR Bookstore and on Amazon.