Vahe Arsen

At the same time, the busy traffic oppresses the poet, as do the chaos of the eternal building sites and the chilly impersonality of the human hordes to which he feels he does not belong. Other recurring themes are loneliness and alienation, which the poet accepts as his fate. “Loneliness-sundown and anger-waterfall: / gliding down to the pavement / that my home has clutched in its concrete cutters.”
 
Like a modern Don Quixote, Arsen goes to battle against the windmills of modern technocratic society. In powerful, often ironic terms, he analyses the reality that surrounds him, as well as that within him. His often lengthy poems give voice to a personality that is averse to all conventions.
 
Vahe Arsen is a professor of world literature at the State University of Yerevan. In addition to his numerous publications in literary magazines, he has published two volumes of poetry, Trtsjogh hetsaniv (The Flying Bicycle, 2003) and Kanatsj astvatsneri veradardze (The Return of the Green Gods, 2007). A third collection has yet to find a publisher. In 2011 a number of his poems were published in Russian translation. Arsen himself translates poetry from English (including poets such as Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson) and from Russian (Elena Zeifert and others). His leisure activities are boxing and karate.
Bibliography

Poetry

Thrchogh hetsaniv, WUA, Yerevan, 2003
Kanatsj astvatsneri veradardze, WUA, Yerevan, 2007

In translation

De terugkeer van de groene goden, de Brouwerij, Rotterdam, 2010
Ekspres solnetsjniy marsjroet (Express Train to the Sun), Moscow, 2011

Translated poetry

The Game, Zangak 97, Yerevan, 2009 (works by Slovakian poets translated by Arsen from English into Armenian)