IALA and h-pem announce 2025 Young Armenian Poets Awardees and Emerging Writers Showcase
The winners of the International Armenian Literary Alliance’s fifth Young Armenian Poets Awards in honor of Tamar Asadourian have been announced, and their poems have been published on h-pem’s and IALA’s websites. Congratulations to poets Emily Chamichyan, Hrant Shadyan and Sarine Shahinian.
This year’s prompt for the Young Armenian Poets Awards in Honor of Tamar Asadourian asked entrants to consider German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht’s words regarding what our response to tragedy, crisis and grief might be. He asks, in his poem “Motto,” if “In dark times / Will there also be singing?” to which he responds, “Yes, there will be singing. / About the dark times.”
“There is, initially — for many, I imagine — a certain sense of despair that falls like a curtain quite immediately when hearing these words, which seem to have made their way into more and more public conversations lately. Who reading this has not felt the light of the world dim in recent times, and, for too many, virtually (and heartbreakingly) extinguish? But there is also that word, singing, that seems to offer resistance and tension. It refuses to give up and feels this innate impulse to identify, through imagination and resolve, that which ails us and, indeed, that which is part of this complicated human condition, no matter how painful the rendering. It’s the voices from both nearby and far away that offer us inspiration. Things can/must get better,” writes Founder and Director of the awards, Alan Semerdjian, in his introduction.
Click the links below to read the winning poems:
- Emily Chamichyan: “bloodline”
- Hrant Shadyan: “Grandma, I’m Here”
- Sarine Shahinian: “Tourniquet”
The contest was judged by IALA Advisory Board members Gregory Djanikian, Arminé Iknadossian and Raffi Joe Wartanian.
The winning poets will read their work at IALA’s fifth Emerging Writers Showcase — a virtual reading that will also feature this year’s IALA mentees — on Sunday, October 26, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. Pacific/12:00 p.m. Eastern/8:00 p.m. Armenia time, hosted by Shahé Mankerian, IALA’s Mentorship Program Director. Register here.
Born in 1980, Tamar Asadourian was an accomplished pianist, author and artist. At 16, she performed at Carnegie Hall and was acclaimed as “an absorbing artist of uncommon sensitivity and intelligence.” While studying at the Manhattan School of Music, Asadourian was forced to give up the piano due to illness. She suffered from severe depression, and dedicated herself to writing, drawing and the arts. After her untimely death in 2020, a collection of her poetry, prose and artwork was published in a volume entitled I remember you my future… (Naregatsi Art Institute, Yerevan, Armenia, 2022). Read more of Asadourian’s writing here, and read Lilit Keheyan’s reflections on her work here.
The International Armenian Literary Alliance is a nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that supports and celebrates writers by fostering the development and distribution of Armenian literature in the English language. A network of Armenian writers and their champions, IALA gives Armenian writers a voice in the literary world through creative, professional and scholarly advocacy.
