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  • Novelist, short-story writer, and poet William Michaelian

    Born Today William Michaelian, (born May 20, 1956) is an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. Born in Dinuba, California, a small town southeast of Fresno, Michaelian grew up on his family's farm. He has lived in Salem, Oregon, since 1987. His stories, poems, and drawings... more

    Reviewed by dobedobedo May 19 2008, 11:08pm ( 3 reviews ) • williammichaelian.com

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  • Rated by dobedobedo on May 19 2008, 11:08pm

    Born Today William Michaelian, (born May 20, 1956) is an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. Born in Dinuba, California, a small town southeast of Fresno, Michaelian grew up on his family's farm. He has lived in Salem, Oregon, since 1987. His stories, poems, and drawings have appeared in literary periodicals in the United States and Armenia; his work has been performed on Armenian National Radio. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Ararat (New York), a quarterly journal devoted to literary and historical work on Armenian subjects. He is also a contributor to the multilingual Armenian Poetry Project, curated and produced in New York by Lola Koundakjian. In 2003, he launched an open online literary dialogue, "The Conversation Continues", with John Berbrich, publisher and editor of the small press literary quarterly, Barbaric Yawp (Russell, New York). Why I Don't Buy Grapes What brought this on? Summer, I suppose. Memories of old times, stirred by a warm, field-scented breeze. When we left the San Joaquin Valley and moved to Oregon back in 1987, one of our favorite old neighbors actually shipped us a box of grapes from his vineyard. They were crisp and sweet and had rugged, sturdy stems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Why I Don't Buy Grapes We still have some of the old wooden picking boxes from our farming days, complete with juice stains and packers' names. I see them by the thousands in my dreams: some are empty, some are full, some are waiting in the shade. My father's hands have held them, his father's hands have held them, my brothers' hands, my hands, the hands of unknown laborers. But I don't tell the grocer, a city man who thinks of grapes as merely red or green, and is not offended when he sees them wrapped in plastic. He has his life, I have mine, but my roots defy concrete. And I have kissed a girl in a vineyard on a summer night, when the grapes were ripe and the taste was sweet; and the girl became my wife, and we were ripe, so much more than pale grapes like these. ***

  • Rated by robpost3 on Jun 04 2007, 5:43pm

    Very well written, and with much integrity. Worthy to explore has a deep well,I suggest anyone to take a long draught here, refreshing.