why i write

[ara baliozian]

WHY I WRITE

***************************

To share my despair, what else?

If I were a rich man

I would share my wealth.

I would be a benefactor.

I would be popular.

I would make headlines in our weeklies.

I would count among my friends

nine bishops,

three archbishops,

two patriarchs and

at least one catholicos.

I would sport medals identifying me

as a Nakharar of Vaspourakan,

a Sparabed of Avarair,

a Prince of Cilicia,

a King of Armenia Major

and an Emperor of Transcaucasia.

(Have you noticed that even people who hate reading fiction,

love living in it!)

But these are things that are destined to remain

beyond my wildest dreams.

As an overworked and underpaid scribbler,

all I have to share now is my misery

and since I cannot be a benefactor,

I must reconcile myself to being a malefactor,

what else?

[ara baliozian]

HOVANNES READERS

*****************************

Once upon a time I had as many as fifty thousand readers:

that’s when our partisan as well as non-partisan editors

in Canada, the United States and the Middle East

printed everything I wrote.

So what if most of these readers were of the

(what’s known in the business as)

"shithouse" variant? – that is,

they read me in the john.

A reader is a reader

even if he does his reading while engaged otherwise.

And now that our editors have conferred upon me

the status of non-person,

how many readers to I have?

Hard to say.

A dozen? Two?

It doesn’t really matter.

I can always console myself

by repeating the old Chinese proverb:

"If you think the right thoughts,

you will be heard thirty thousand miles away."

[dragon]

I thought you write simply because you are a writer and can do nothing but writing.

 

Dragon