Hmayeak Shems

Vahé Baladouni has contributed to a number of Middle Eastern Armenian literary periodicals, and translated the poetry and prose of writers such as Shakespeare, Shelley, and Wilde into Armenian in Translations (1973). He compiled and edited Hmayeak Shems: Entir Erker [Hmayeak Shems: Select Works] (1994); translated (with John Gery) Shems's prose poems into Engish, For the House of Torkom (1999); and helped publish several of Shems's works in Erevan, Armenia, (2001-2004).John Gery has published five volumes of poetry, most recently A Gallery of Ghosts (2008), and has written extensively on modern and contemporary poetry, including the books Contemporary American Poetry and Nuclear Annihilation: Ways of Nothingness (1996) and (with others) In Venice and in the Veneto with Ezra Pound (2007). He has co-translated works from Serbian, Chinese, Armenian, and French, is professor of literature and creative writing at the University of New Orleans, and directs the Ezra Pound Center for Literature at Brunnenburg, Italy.

• Chapter 1 List of PhotographsChapter 2 PrefaceChapter 3 AcknowledgmentsChapter 4 Reference KeyChapter 5 A Chronology of Hmayeak ShemsChapter 6 A Diasporan Journey: Cities Where Shems Visited and LivedChapter 7 Part I Student, Rebel, and Wandering Dervish: From Trabzon to the Caucasus and the BalkansChapter 8 Part II Poet, Scholar, Orator, and Teacher: AlexandriaChapter 9 Appendix A "A Portrait of Hmayeak Shems" by Gurgen Mkhit'arianChapter 10 Appendix B "The Hmayeak Shems I Knew" by Step'an ShahpazChapter 11 Appendix C An Undated Draft Letter to Levon Hovhannesian Written by Hmayeak ShemsChapter 12 NotesChapter 13 Acronyms and AbbreviationsChapter 14 Selected BibliographyChapter 15 Index

Intense music rises from the very heart of his poetry, expanding the allure of compressed beauties.