Author Delphine Jacquart builds a memory pond that bridges her people’s collective experience with her children – fourth-generation survivors
Recently, USA Armenian Life Magazine editorial staff has received with much delight and appreciation, two finely crafted artistic works “Memory” (139 pages; written in a bilingual format — English and French) and “Siamanto, Mon Amour” (“Siamanto, My Love”) (174 pages; in French) by Delphine Jacquart.
Through her pen, the talented and creative author Delphine Jacquart — nom-de plume of Brigitte Tavitian, brings back to life an entire universe where her orphaned survivor ancestors and such artistic giants as Gomidas Vartabed and Siamanto parade vividly. The author’s journey is inspiring yet empowering.
Delphine Jacquart builds a memory pond that bridges the collective experience of her people in the years of the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide with her children – the fourth-generation survivors and beyond.
Appo Jabarian
The biography of Delphine Jacquart
Delphine Jacquart is the nom-de plume of Brigitte Tavitian, a Bel Canto singer in her youth. This musical background, an integral part of her soul, has forged an almost musical harmony and color into the poetry of her stories.
She was born into a world whose Oriental civilization was both her cradle and the inspiration for her childhood and girlish dreams. The welcoming tolerance of the Lebanon provided a home in which the call of the muezzin co-existed with the matin bells, in a world at once happy, laughing and warm. She was deeply affected by the harmonious, intelligent and respectful cohabitation of religions and cultures.
She carried precious memories of her place of birth when she left for France. The everyday smells which had surrounded and comforted her, the familiar sounds which were unique to the way of life of the Lebanon followed her. It was a way for Delphine Jacquard to protect the innocent and happy memories of her childhood, and inspire hope for a better future, for warmth in the cold, and for relief at times of distress.
Her life continued with a move to Québec, where she began legal work after graduating with a law degree. Her memories became the underpinnings of her world, those fragments of life on three continents kept alive as stories. She experienced the duality of her two parental cultures. She realized that she could never relate completely to the Oriental roots of her father, or to the European origins of her mother. She decided to build a bridge between the two cultures, and to fuse the best of both.
AN ENCHANTED PEN TAKES OFF AND QUIETLY BEGINS ITS JOURNEY
Translated from French to English by Appo Jabarian
It all started a long time ago.
After a hard day’s work, to their delight, Delphine presented, a “cookie hour” to her two little special ones. A magical gateway opened. She froze the sandglass timer to transform herself into a storyteller and started telling fabulous stories to her little loves. They were captivated and amazed.
In 2006, one of them, remembering these moments of happiness or perhaps tired of hearing her repeat the same ceremony, said “One day I will write” while offering her a notebook inviting her to realize her wish.
Subconsciously, he had just empowered her to take time out for herself. A breath of fresh air and a wind of freedom now blew into the dullness of a life without outline that she called her “Gray Zone.”
In 2014, a first book of poetic stories was created, Mémoire-Memory 1915-2015, published by ÉDITIONS DE L’APOTHÉOSE. The text Khatch Kar ( “Cross-stone” in Armenian), (extract from Mémoire 1915-2015,) later became the subject of a theatrical adaptation.
Performed by the Troupe Hay Pem, the play, “Je m’appelle Gomidas”, was presented in May and June 2015 on the 80th anniversary of the death of the great composer and priest Gomidas, under the artistic direction of Nancy Issa Torosian (recipient of the Paul Buissonneau Prize 2016).
In 2016, a second novel was presented to the reader to reflect on bipolarity, “J’suis Fu#&ké Dans La Tête, (“I’m Sc#w&d in the head, Listen To My Soul,”) published by ÉDITIONS DE L’APOTHÉOSE. The author initiates an exceptional ‘meeting’ between Gomidas and Émile Nelligan, two contemporary geniuses, united by talent and madness, during a tribute evening, on March 5, 2017, organized in cooperation with Tekeyan Armenian Cultural Association.
In 2018, on the 140th birthday of Siamanto (1878-1915), the author pays a vibrant tribute to the poet. Her third novel, “Siamanto, Mon Amour” (“Siamanto, My Love”), takes the reader into the world of cursed poets of 1915.
The enchanted pen takes off and quietly begins its journey.
“Siamanto, Mon Amour” (“Siamanto, My Love”) – Delphine Jacquart
Translated from French to English by Appo Jabarian
Fruit of the author’s imagination, this trip to the past resuscitates the ghost of the great Armenian poet, Adom Yardjanian, better known by his pen name, Siamanto, through a triangular love story between a certain Edgar, the muse Elsa and the versifier that has disappeared. Through this work we witness the revival of another contemporary catastrophe of the First World War: the mass extermination of Armenian intellectuals during the tragic roundup on April 24, 1915.
The novel brings back to life, the cursed Armenian poets to share the unspeakable hatred hurled against their people, in an artistically revived era.
Diamond merchant from Lausanne, Edgar Merz meets in a tea room a mysterious woman with whom he falls madly in love. Hector the Maitre D warned him about her. Because of the fact that she was the muse of a great poet who died in excruciating circumstances, Elsa will not be loved by any man. In vain, Edgar ‘endeavors’ to seduce her. The unfortunate man quickly discovers that he could never overshadow the disappeared who is so adored by his sweetheart.
From this dramatic episode that cost the lives of a million and a half people, Delphine Jacquart takes us into the heart-wrenching world of cursed poets – the targeted victims who left for future generations a set of works in a time capsule that is empty and a feeling of incomplete experience. All future creations of the Armenian nation, spoiled because of the premature disappearance of their authors, continue to be synonymous with the abyssal loss for the entirety of the cultural genre. The elite of an era known as “aesthetics”, these talented intellectuals brought Armenian literature to its peak through their extremely rich crafts. Unfortunately, they sank into silence and death without notice, thus becoming a reflection of our own genocidal hauntings.
The romantic notion of the poet’s curse appeared in 1832 in Alfred de Vigny’s Stello, Verlaine was the first to use the expression “cursed poets” to designate the misunderstood rhymers … who behaved provocatively and self-destructively. Yet, Armenian literature has chosen to interject as “cursed” these young poets born in the midst of the tumult of a very dark period in history. They died tortured and massacred before delivering the quintessence of their genius. To rebuild these rubbles will be a feat.
Les Éditions de l’Apothéose
http://leseditionsdelapotheose.com/boutique/literature/siamanto-mon-amour/
