Poem | I Was Raised by Survivors by YAPA 2024 Winner Lenna Karapetian

I Was Raised by Survivors

I was raised by

Sarma eating,

Armenian-style cooking

Lehmejune so good you want to

Sit back and relax while eating

“Shad hamoveh, shnorhagalem”

Kind of dears.

Some curly-haired,

Big-eyed,

“You don’t need to shave your arms,

they’re beautiful”

Sorta survivors.

 
Some loud-spoken

Flag waving,

Armenian speaking,

Slipper wearing,

Always open for a free hug

“Come here, hokis, and bring it in”

Type of lovers.

 
Some soorj-sipping

Mitten and apron-wearing

Almost snuffed out,

Fought back,

Won but just barely

“Better luck next time”

Type of survivors.

 
Some pinky-linking

Armenian dancing,

Arms waving,

“I’ll skip up and down with heels on”

Kind of dancers.

 
Some good smelling

Sarma eating, Baklava loving,

Warm food waiting,

World-dominating,

Stand back

I’m molding fighters...

 
I was raised by survivors.
 

Lenna Karapetian is a 16-year-old Armenian born in Michigan and raised in Wisconsin. She is a 10th grade student in an International Baccalaureate (IB) school which incorporates a comprehensive challenging framework requiring high levels of commitment, character, and academic ability. Karapetian is currently in the Biomedical Pathway. She balances her academic life with swimming on the school swim team, playing piano, drawing and crocheting. She is involved in the Armenian community as a member of the local Armenian Youth Federation, Racine "Armen Garo" chapter and has served as Recording Secretary since 2019.
 

YAPA Judge Gregory Djanikian on Karapetian’s “I Was Raised by Survivors”:
"I love the tone of this poem, how it joyously enumerates aspects of Armenian culture, the food, the dancing, the love of family, the aromas of the kitchen, the thick coffee. The rhythms are buoyant, accentual, the phrasing deliciously tap-tapping on the tongue, each stanza a discrete poem in itself, conjuring up lively sensations of domestic pleasures. The poem, of course, is not so naïve as to disregard the dark history of our past. On the contrary, it establishes, even as early as its title, that we are survivors of genocidal and ethnic violence, which makes the rejoicing that the poem so aptly describes even more hard-won and resolute, our love of life enduring in spite of everything that has tried to diminish it. I admire how the penultimate stanza ends in an ellipsis, an open-endedness, and suggests that our history, given our fortitude, will continue generation after generation. And the final couplet reemphasizes our will to survive, giving praise to who we are, curly-haired and distinctive, entangled with the life of the world."
 
Gregory Djanikian has published seven collections of poetry with Carnegie Mellon University Press, the latest of which is Sojourners of the In-Between (2020), and his poems have appeared in numerous journals, textbooks, and anthologies. For many years, he directed the creative writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.