Shahé Mankerian’s collection of poetry ‘History of Forgetfulness’ manages to make the personal political, weaving intimate, domestic details of childhood and family life with the wider landscape of civil war in Beirut. In his devastating first line, Shahé writes “I got my schooling at the morgue”.
We were the amber gods
that day; we turned away
from childhood, faced the smoke,
and screamed much louder than
the cat, the scorching rats,
the maggots fed on flesh;
and louder than the bomb
that stopped ticking at last.
- From ‘Books’
Poet Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School and the poetry co-director of Rockvale Review. His manuscript, History of Forgetfulness, has been a finalist at the Bibby First Book Competition, the Crab Orchard Poetry Open Competition, the Quercus Review Press Poetry Book Award, and the White Pine Press Prize. Online publications, Border Crossing and Cahoodaloodaling, have nominated Shahé’s poems for the 2018 Best of the Net. Visible Poetry Project’s animation of Mankerian’s poem, “The Last Mosque,” premiered at the 2018 New York Poetry Festival. He received the 2017 Editors’ Prize from MARY: A Journal of New Writing.
To express early interest in reviewing this collection, set for an October release, contact Isabelle Kenyon via Flyonthewallpress@hotmail.com.