MUST READ BOOKS BY TORKOM SARAYDARIAN

What is Poetry? By Torkom Saraydarian
 There are rare moments in our life when an event happens, but it runs by so quickly that we cannot grab it. We need a fast camera, which takes instantaneously the event that is occurring. There are many events like that in the physical plane, but especially in our emotional world and in the world of ideas, impressions, and inspirations. Events, ideas, and thoughts come and go so fast that we must develop our apparatus to catch them. That apparatus is what the real poet is, and what he catches is the poetry.
 An average man can see an event or strong emotions or a thought, but a poet can see hundreds of events in one event. His expressions are clear, but his suggestions are multidimensional. Sometimes he speaks on five levels and pursues a different goal for each one.
 Readers of poems are not average people. They have abstract and practical minds, plus the light of Intuition. It is very important to have creative imagination and visualization to catch echoes of the poems that no average ear can hear.
 Poetry is making love with your visions and with the deep feelings of your heart. In the bottom of your heart there are many subtle feelings, but they never come to the surface because of the noise of civilized life. Poets are the ones who discover them, dress them in subtle form, and present them to the world as bridges of transformation.
 A real poet makes his or her readers see rare events of life, see a drop of a tear in the smiling face of a child, for instance, and express his feelings. But also, he sees a drop of light in the darkness of night and catches it for others.
 Poets live inside their palace of bliss and pain and melt them together with their vision to make a poem — in each poem to see the subtle pain and the immense joy. Poetry is a moment of diving into the ocean of Intuition where you feel one with everything.
You catch the pearl in an oyster and bring it to the surface. Poetry cannot be explained. It only can be intuited by your heart and abstract mind. Some people think that poets are brainless people. “What is poetry?” they say.
 Poets are in the light of the intellect every moment, but they do not use that light for their selfsatisfaction and greed. Neither do they use it for judgment and criticism. Intellect for them is the principles of rhythm and harmony.
 A poet loves but does not desire. A poet rejects the gift and aspires for the giver. The poet lives in the symphony of life and tries to drown in the symphony.

 (Reprinted from the introductory materials in From My Heart, Volume 1, by Torkom Saraydarian.)