Poetry Workshop in London

Thursday, 3 October 2024, 6:30 pm  8:00 pm,  Lola Koundakjian will be teaching a poetry writing workshop at the Armenian Institute, London. This event is held in association with the Poetry Society. 

INVITATION The Untapped Archive: Poetry Writing Workshop Thursday, 03 October 2024, 6:30 PM  At the Armenian Institute  BOOK NOW As an accomplished New-York-based poet, editor and translator, Lola Koundakjian has led many poetry-writing workshops throughout her career. But never one quite like this, exclusively in London for the Armenian Institute, in which she will, for the first time, enable participants to take inspiration from the photographs of her father, the late photojournalist Harry Koundakjian. Harry Koundakjian (1930-2014) was an outstanding international photographer, who roamed the world during the golden years of photojournalism to document political upheavals and weather disasters for the world-renowned news agency AP. Today, the Koundakjian family is generously donating Harry’s archive to the Armenian Institute, who thus becomes the guardian of thousands of prints and documents by the late photographer. As his daughter and the instigator for this high-profile donation, Lola has a uniquely detailed knowledge of his career and vision. Come and engage in a completely unique way both with Harry’s pictures, through the eyes of his daughter, and with Lola’s skill as a writer and engagement for Armenian poetry. Lola will select pictures from her father’s archive and propose ways in which you can use them as points of departure for writing. This event is held in association with The Poetry Society. This event is part of Heritage of Displacement: Oral Histories from the UK Armenian Communities (2023–2026), funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, thanks to National Lottery players. Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it — Ralph Waldo Emerson   View this email in your browser Copyright © 2024 Armenian Institute. All Rights Reserved. You are signed up to receive updates from the Armenian Institute, London. Our mailing address is: Armenian Institute 1 Onslow St Farringdon London, EC1N 8AS United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Reading in London

On October 5, 4-6 pm, Lola Koundakjian will read her work, followed by a book signing.

Details are below.

Fourth Annual Summer Blossoms Jazz & Concert.

Ft. Tryon Park Trust and Jazz WaHi present the 4th Annual Summer Blossoms Jazz & Concert. Join the Fort Tryon Park Trust, poets, and the Jazz WaHi Quintet for an afternoon of music and spoken word. Bring your blankets & (low) chairs for this wonderful end-of-summer event at the Billings Lawn. Refreshments will be served!

This concert is in honor of Nereida Delgado.

Free and open to all.

The Jazz WaHi Quintet - Louise Rogers, voice; Berta Moreno, sax; Mark Kross, piano; John Loehrke, bass; Chidi Emmanuel, drums.

Poets: Lola Koundakjian, Rebecca Street, Hannah Oberman-Breindel 

Sunday, September 15 3-5PM

Location Ft Tryon Park - Billings Lawn

Reading at the Argentinian Consulate, New York

Lola Koundakjian was invited by the Swiss-Argentinian artist,  Cristian Damian Gonzalez, to participate in the opening exhibit of his New York one-man show on April 10, 2024 at the Consulate of Argentina in New York.  

Reading in Brooklyn, NY

Lola Koundakjian participated in a reading organized by Alina Grigorian on the theme of "Trndez" or տեառընդառաջ 

The event was held on March 2 at Storm Books & Candy (118 Norman Avenue), a new bookstore in Greenpoint focusing on SWANA, art/design, and children’s books. 

Bookshop.org

 Readers: If you don't live near an Armenian Bookstore, please visit the Bookshop.org store. 

Happy Reading! 

TAPFNY 2023 reading in NYC and Long Island (October 11-13, 2023)

 Lola Koundakjian was invited for a second time to read in the Tenth edition of The Americas Poetry Festival of New York (TAPFNY). She read twice, during the opening night (at around 1:07 in the live stream) as well as at the Walt Whitman Birthplace Museum (at around 1:06PM in the livestream).

With many thanks to the organizers and institutions who hosted them. 

Reading on September 1, 2023 at 7PM at the Walt Whitman Birthplace Museum, NY

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents “Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance.” The signature series, now in its 13th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman Stage.

Friday, September 1st, Walking With Whitman will feature Armenian poet Lola Koundakjian, and slam poet Anna Martinez. The evening will also feature a special guest host, the new Suffolk County Poet Laureate, Deborah Hauser, and have live music by Singer-Songwriter Linda Sussman. Join us for this exciting event!

Refreshments will be served. No registration is required. There is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door.

Lola Koundakjian (www.lolakoundakjian.com) is an Armenian poet, editor and translator living in New York City since 1979. She runs the Dead Armenian Poetry Society and curates and produces poems and audio for the online Armenian Poetry Project. Lola’s translations from Western Armenian to English are in Ararat Quarterly, Rattapallax, Poetry International at SDSU, with more scheduled in Wassafiri in 2024. Since 2010, Lola has read her work at six international poetry festivals. In 2021 her third book — The Moon in the Cusp on my Hand — won the Minas and Kohar Tololyan Prize in Contemporary Literature. Lola serves on the board of the International Armenian Literary Association (https://armenianliterary.org)

Anna Martinez is a mother, grandmother, performance/competitive/slam poet, and civil rights attorney. Born in Los Angeles at the height of its civil rights movements, she was then raised from school age in Española, New Mexico. Anna Martinez has been named the 2022-2023 Poet Laureate of Albuquerque, NM. She is also the in-house poet at Las Pistoleras Instituto Cultural de Arte in Taos and has held titles as ABQ Chicano/a City Slam Champ, XXX Haiku City Champ, and 2019 City Slam Champ for team Mindwell Slam. She is also on the board of directors for Burque Revolt Poetry Slam and opens her home for free to touring poets. She lives in Albuquerque.

Linda Sussman (LindaSussman.com) is an award-winning singer-songwriter whose versatile vocals and guitar style cross boundaries of alternative-folk and blues. Her music, which has ranked #1 on the Roots Music Report’s weekly Alternative Folk Album Chart, spans universal topics from heartache and triumphs to calls for social justice and can be heard on radio programs in both the US and abroad. The many stages she has played range from the iconic New York City venue The Bitter End to Radio Bean in Burlington, VT. Over the past five years, Linda has released four full-length albums and several singles, all of which are available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, etc.

Deborah Hauser – Poet, feminist, activist, certified ennui therapist, and fairy tale revisionist. Deborah Hauser is the author of Ennui: From the Diagnostic and Statistical Field Guide of Feminine Disorders. Her poems and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Ms. Magazine, Women’s Review of Books, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, and Calyx. Her work explores the intersection of poetry and activism. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has taught literature and writing at Stony Brook University and Suffolk County Community College. She has featured at the Northeast Modern Language Association, New York University, Newman University, KGB Bar, Walt Whitman Birthplace, and Bowery Poetry Club. She has presented her academic work at conferences including the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference and graduate conferences at The City University of New York and Stony Brook University. She curates and hosts a monthly reading series at Jack Jack’s Coffee House for the Babylon Village Arts Council, is an Associate Editor at Poetrybay, the Secretary of the Suffolk County Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and a Long Island Poetry and Literature Repository Board Member. She leads a double life on Long Island where she works in the insurance industry.