As goes National Poetry Month, so go our poetry-themed columns.

And so I chat this week with reporter-turned-poet Diana Der-Hovanessian, president of the New England Poetry Club.

Diana was one of the featured readers at the Mattapoisett Library's Poetry Reading a couple weeks ago.

If you Google her, you'll find she's pretty much synonymous with Armenia. In fact, she doesn't come up on Wikipedia but Armeniapedia. (Who knew?)

Many of her poems center on Armenian culture. Her father was born there, and fought to free the country during the genocide of 1915.

Her mom was born closer to SouthCoast, in Worcester.

Check out our convo:

Lauren: I read that you were a reporter before turning full-time poet?

Diana: When I was in college, my grandfather asked me what I was preparing for and I answered I wanted to become a poet. And he said, "Oh, no. We Armenians have enough poets. What we need are reporters to tell our story."...

I was an English major (and) I worked on the college newspaper. Then I worked at the Medford Mercury here in Massachusetts. It was a daily and I got a lot of good training both as a reporter and doing rewrites and headlines.

(Then) I worked in New York at the lowest rung at the Associated Press. (Then) as a features writer and reporter at Young America, a weekly news magazine for high school-age readers.

Lauren: How did you come to make the career switch to poet?

Diana: Both my parents were poetry-lovers and were always saying poems. My mother would recite Robert Frost and even Longfellow and Tennyson. And my father knew Armenian poems by heart ... As children my sister, brother and I were encouraged to write poems on special occasions as gifts. And also as gifts we would memorize poems.

I had never stopped reading or liking (poetry.) And when I married, my husband did not want to stay in New York and so we compromised on Boston.

Of course, I had to continue with writing jobs, but I also started to write more (poems) and took courses, and even a workshop with Robert Lowell who encouraged me a lot. By then I was already placing poems (in publications.)

Lauren: You've done Armenian translations, and a lot of your poetry centers on Armenian themes. Is it your family heritage or something else that draws you to writing about that culture?

Diana: My mother was born in Worcester to Armenian parents and my father was sent to Michigan by the first Armenian Republic. That was after World War I ...

My grandfather's family who were still in Armenia-Turkey, for instance, was completely wiped out in 1915.

My father, who was in school that year, ran away to join a small army who decided to fight back instead of being herded and shot ...

Afterwards, the land that was freed, called the first Armenian Republic, sent my father, who had been a soldier-hero, to America to study agriculture. That's what the country needed.

(But) while he was in college, Armenia fell to the Russian communist forces. He had no place to return, since he was an anti-communist. He met my mother when he was visiting ... Worcester.

(When I started publishing poems) my father asked me to translate some poems (by Armenian poet) Daniel Varoujan ... By then I had taken every Armenian course given at Harvard and environs.

Lauren: You're the president of the New England Poetry Club. What are your duties there? What's the mission of the club? How does one join?

Diana: Amy Lowell, Robert Frost and Conrad Aiken started the club in 1915 to bring in the best poets from the country and abroad for readings ...

We brought in the Russian poets during the Cold War and poets from all over the world.

To join, one writes a short bio note to Victor Howes, 137 West Newton St., Boston, Mass., 02118, with the first year's dues, $25.

If you are not accepted, the check will be returned.

Find out more at New England Poetry Club. Founded in 1915 by Amy Lowell, Robert Frost and Conrad Aiken..

Are you a book lover? E-mail Lauren Daley at ldaley@s-t.com, and you just may be her next featured bookworm.




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