The Literary Groong publishes poetry and short creative fiction selected for quality of language, image, translation, and aesthetic value.
Dr. Bedros Afeyan is the editor of The Literary Groong. He will consider works not only of poetry, but also of short creative fiction.
Recent Archive Entries#
Submission Guidelines#
Please note the following important guidelines to submit your work to The Literary Groong:
- All submissions to TLG must be sent electronically to bedros@mac.com and cc’d to GroongNews@googlegroups.com. No other submissions will be considered.
- The editor will indicate if a piece will appear. Once an item has been published on our site we will not remove it except at our discretion.
- The author may submit a piece sent to TLG to other publications at any time. We do not try to prevent wider circulation of works.
- On your first submission, please include a short bio and profile picture of the author.
- Submissions may not be anonymous, but at the author’s request we may use their pen-name and/or withhold their email address for purposes of privacy.
- Submissions which have not yet been selected may continue to receive consideration in following months.
- In art, selection is necessarily a judgement call. As such, we will not argue why a particular submission was or was not selected over another.
- Posting time for TLG is currently on Saturdays.
- There is no guarantee or promise that a submission will be published.
The full Literary Groong archive will be migrated as individual pages in a later step.
Eyes? so unprompted, so carelessly vagabond, Could they be the worst imprisonment of a heart? Could they be the wondrous glory of each and every start?
Eyes? so ridiculously forged with fiercest thoughts, Dreadfully proud of miseries captivated within a breeze, Their random dance seems a weaponless tease.
Eyes? embattled obnoxiousness of past hopes and dreams, Beyond reported facts and diffused believes, Embedded freckle of inseparable clothed nightly thieves....
Today I will make bread: Butter. Eggs. Olive oil. Water. Milk. Flour. Salt. No yeast. Baking powder instead.
Knead lightly, roll out, cut into small portions. Brush with egg. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake until golden brown. Rejoice.
Poor orphans, your mothers and fathers are dead. No more your good-smelling grandfather. No more your grandmother, her wise and angry voice. Hold out your hands, dear ones. Let me fill them with bread....
ARMENIA: The Deathless Tree
By C.K. Garabed
The seeds had been planted upon the peaks of Ararat by Noah the progenitor. The waters of the Tigris and Euphrates nourished the roots of the seedling tree. The trunk grew modestly at first and bent with the winds of change. But sturdily it grew until it became a cordon of rings so mighty that not the Parthians, nor the Assyrians, nor even the Romans could uproot the tree....
Translated by Diana Der-Hovanessian
If one is to die let it be lion-like fighting off death to death’s last strike.
If one is to live let it be the same way so that two million don’t disappear in one day.
For my Grand Mother Pergruhi Alahaydoyan 1912-2006 Who survived the Armenian Genocide
By Shushan Artinian
I held her hand and gave her a smile; Alas, she’s far off, many a mile. She thinks I’m a friendly neighbor, When in fact I’m her loyal grand-daughter. “What’s my name?” I asked her, “Darling” was her unsure answer. “What is your name?” was my second question, Her silence increased the tension. She did not remember her own name, Nor the place from where she came....
She dices the onions finely. A construction worker, 25, falls to his death. She adds the coriander, cloves and ginger. A soldier, 21, walks over a roadside bomb. She removes the meatballs from the fridge A journalist, 43, gets shot thru the head. She stirs the sauce over a low fire and adds a few tears to the pot.
Effervescent, glutinous, elastic, ornate Equivocal endorsement, heart belt, hosted head Dismal doubt for the sincerity of the sinner Drowns the premise of the sin grinders instead.
Make a fish smile or a lion swim Let a muscle twitch or a battle blossom Let the country sink in jingo driven jungles Far away desert gold protected by our armored castles.
Let history deplete the motives as its narrative tussles Crucial facts obliterate the dust of their threats divine Politics presume pretension will gurgitate revisions Till brown masses of pint size braggarts make Texas logic lord and prances....
Readers - they are my only secret: gentle readers, avid readers, concerned readers willing to correct me whenever I stray from the straight and narrow, eager to remind me that honey catches more flies than vinegar (so does manure, but never mind about that now). Writers of the past were not as lucky as I am. During the Soviet era, for instance, the only advice our commissars had for our writers was a bullet in the neck....
They ask me to be involved. I send 50 blankets, 100 bars of unscented soap and 1000 pencils for schoolchildren. I can’t send my shock. They ask me to shed tears. My river overflows. My dry eyes sigh. My morning juice sours. I see double sometimes. They ask me to spread the word. I type too fast. My images are pasted on the past. My daily trek is vexed. Memory still consults my mind....
SONG OF THE SHEPHERDS
By Knarik O. Meneshian
Up Climbs the shepherd With his flock. “Hey, hey!” he calls, Tapping his stick on soil and rock Up The mountain Aragats.
Higher, A shepherdess In a billowy dress With hair tucked under her scarf Sings as she stirs a pot Hanging above flickering flames Near a canvas tent And strips of wool dripping, drying on a rope In the summer wind Sweeping across the mountain, Through rocky fields, green pastures, and alpine flower meadows Of blue and white and pink and yellow....