POET LOLA KOUNDAKJIAN TO ATTEND INT'L FESTIVAL IN QUEBEC

[Yervant1]

POET LOLA KOUNDAKJIAN TO ATTEND INT'L FESTIVAL IN QUEBEC

September 24, 2014 - 12:24 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Among the one hundred international, renowned poets
attending the 30th International Poetry Festival at Trois-Rivières
in Quebec, starting Oct 3, is New York poet Lola Koundakjian.

The 10-day festival features hundreds of events and attracts more
than 35,000 participants and spectators from all seven continents,
as well as national and international media, a press release says.

"Lola is the first Armenian poet coming to Trois-Rivières," says
festival president and founder Gaston Bellemare. "I am very happy
to welcome her to our city for our 30th Festival International de
la Poesie."

Koundakjian's poems have appeared in print and online and have been
translated into French, Spanish and Ukrainian.

"I met Lola at a poetry festival two years ago in Lima, Peru," says
Bellemare. "I listened to her readings, read her poems over again,
and I immediately put her name on my future list of guests. I was
and still am sure people will strongly love her."

Koundakjian has been a driving force in bringing Armenian poetry
to non-Armenians, international audiences and younger generations
of Armenians. For more than two decades, she has organized the Dead
Armenian Poets' Society gatherings, where people recite the poetry
of deceased Armenian poets in Armenian or in translation and share
biographical notes about the authors.

She is also the creator and curator of the online Armenian Poetry
Project, which launched in 2006 and features extremely popular
podcasts.

"It's humbling to share the stage with notable and award-winning poets
from around the world," says Koundakjian. "It's a bit unnerving but
a great opportunity to share my words and our culture with fellow
poets and international audiences."

Koundakjian is appearing a dozen times during the festival, and she
will be reading her work in Armenian, English and French.

"What makes the Trois-Rivières Festival so fascinating is its broad
reach to multiple audiences," says Koundakjian. "It has activities
geared for university students as well as school children. I'm
personally looking forward to a unique event called Poetry Promenade.

People will read poems posted on city walls and mail them from postal
box at the center of town."

Koundakjian has spent decades writing and reporting in Armenian media.

She reads her poetry regularly in the Big Apple, its tri-state
area and both coasts of the United States. She has also appeared at
international poetry festivals including ones in Medallín, Colombia,
and Ramallah, West Bank.

By day, the poet is an internet technologies professional for one
of the largest international media conglomerates. She used her IT
know-how and skills to bring Armenian poetry into the 21st century
and information age through multiple internet platforms. Hundreds of
thousands of readers and listeners from more than a hundred countries
access the content of her sites regularly.

"I started the Armenian Poetry Project in 2006 as a free community
service and made it available on RSS, Twitter, SoundCloud and iTunes,"
explains Koundakjian. "Currently it has more than 2,100 poems by
Armenian poets. It also features non-Armenian poets writing in various
languages about Armenian subjects."

The Armenian Poetry Project also contains works from more than a
hundred poets from Armenian communities around the globe. The poetry
chronicled ranges from the 19th century to contemporary poets. The
site also includes some classical and medieval Armenian poetry.

Post-Genocide era Armenian poetry was the subject of an article
Koundakjian co-edited in 2012 with Catherine Fletcher for the
Rattapallax literary journal and database.

Koundakjian's translations of modern Istanbul poets have been included
in Dora Sakayan's newest edition of the Western Armenian language
teaching manual.

Koundakjian's first collection of poetry, The Accidental Observer,
was published in 2011. Her second manuscript, Advice to a Poet, was
a finalist in Armenia's Orange Book Prize in 2012. It is due to be
published later this year.

[Arpa]

Lola aka the multitalented NYC-Potter has been here. See #3

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17409&page=1&&do=findComment&comment=226005

http://www.armeniapedia.org/images/a/af/LolaKoundakjian.jpg

Her father Harry (the horse died recently.

http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/05/13/veteran-photojournalist-harry-koundakjian-passes-away/

Lest I be so forward I have personally known them. Her Father Harry(Harout), from Haleb her mother Aida (Kessabbtsi, Poladian), and in Beirut when Lola was just a toddler.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/former-ap-photographer-harry-koundakjian-dies

http://edwarddlynchfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/350/Harry_Koundakjian/obituary.html

[nyc_potter]

Hello all: thanks for sharing the article from Asbarez. To set the record straight, it's correct my father passed away; his baptismal name was Haroutiun (never used Harout, always Harry). He was born in Aleppo and moved to Beirut before completing his high-school there. My mother's family is from Tokat, not Kessab, and I was born in Beirut, but left as a teen-ager not a toddler.

[onjig]

Greetings Lola, Good to see your smiling face and to read of all you've done and are doing. So glad you came by. You have added another fan.

[Arpa]

Hello all: thanks for sharing the article from Asbarez. To set the record straight, it's correct my father passed away; his baptismal name was Haroutiun (never used Harout, always Harry). He was born in Aleppo and moved to Beirut before completing his high-school there. My mother's family is from Tokat, not Kessab, and I was born in Beirut, but left as a teen-ager not a toddler.

Hi Lola, good to see you again.. When I said toddler was that I had seen you as one., in 1964-65 ??

Here on page 4 see the picture of your aunt Anahid.

http://www.amaa.org/AMAA%20News/AMAANews%20Jan.2013%20special%20issue.pdf

BTW. We have communicated a while back via E-mail.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Arpa

[nyc_potter]

Thanks, but that doesn't look like my aunt Anahid.

 

Yes, early sixties would put me around my "terrible twos".

[Arpa]

Thanks, but that doesn't look like my aunt Anahid.

 

Yes, early sixties would put me around my "terrible twos".

Yes Lola. That picture may not be your aunt Anahid, but at that encounter at your parents" house your aunts Anahid and Sonig were also present BTW. Sonig was an aspiring ballet student at the time.

Viken was not born yet.