My Introduction of Lucy’s book of Armenian poetry.

Lucy Toprakjian’s book of Armenian poetry is now available on Amazond.com and on Barnes & Noble. I attached my introduction of her book, which was published by Hrach Kalsahakian of the UAE.  Those interested may purchased a copy from her.

I have not met Lucy Toprakjian Murphy in person. I met her online, on Armenian social medium. In fact, I need to correct myself. I met her poems before befriending her.

At a point in time, it dawned on me that a lady is posting poems in Armenian with regularity. They are easy to read, easy to relate to poems. Her poems were not about themes, such as love, loss, aging, nature and so forth. But her poems were drawn from her own experiences of love, of loss, of aging or of nature, in short of life itself. They reflected her personal feelings having experienced the joys and the tribulations of life. It also became evident to me that writing poetry comes natural to her. I recall a comedian being asked from where he sources his comedy materials. He said from his everyday happenings and experiences with his wife, in-laws, and others. He also made a statement, what has remained etched in my memory. He said, “everything personal is universal.” Surely, he meant to say that people relate to the personal experiences of others. They surely do.

I am a believer in books, as books go. It would be a loss, I thought, for the Diaspora Armenian literature if her poems would remain scattered in the social media and not assembled between the covers of a book. After all, these poems also reflect the experiences of a young Armenian immigrant lady who loved, toiled hard, and experienced joy and sadness, and through it all, she established her roots far from where she was born and raised. I suggested she collect her poems to have them published as a book. I took it upon myself to type them and format them in a book. That is why there is not much in this book, other than Lucy’s poems typed on paper and offered to the readers’ imagination. Surely, there are typos.

I imagine this book will be a lasting bond between Lucy and Krikor, the husband she lost, and their children and their descendants and also to Tom who came onto her and her family’s life after she had endured the loss of her husband, raised her family on her own. Tom became a part of the family mosaic that makes Lucy Toprakjian family’s tapestry whole.

It is a fact of an immigrant’s life that her descendants may not be able to read Armenian, the language with which her parents welcomed her into this world, loved and nurtured her and raised her to confront the world. But modern technology will come to their help, if it already has not. Pretty soon, anyone will hold a smart device, most likely we may still call it a phone, scan the poem and have it displayed in a language of the reader’s choosing.

I believe with this book of poetry, her descendants’ connection with the family’s matriarch Lucy Toprakjian Murphy will long endure. After all, this is her life’s book.

Happy reading,

Vaհe H Apelian