"The Writing on Your Forehead: A Conversation with Lory Bedikian" by Gelina Mae Liobing
Nearly six years ago, in November 2019, MORIA hosted award-winning poet Lory Bedikian for our First Press Reading Series. Now, ahead of her return as a reader, this time on our digital stage, I met with Bedikian virtually to catch up on what MORIA has missed in the years past and what she has currently been up to.
First, when I asked her about what made her take up the offer to return, she recounted that she was the one who had initially reached out to Dr. Linda Dove, our faculty editor. She told Dr. Dove that she would love to come back because she had a new book, published in September 2024, Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body. Aside from this, Bedikian also told me that she found our reading series to be very meaningful and felt a deep connection with students who approached her afterwards saying her work personally spoke to them.
Catching up on the last six years, Bedikian has been through a lot. In 2020, her mother passed away from cancer, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bedikian celebrated her 50th birthday the same month. Recalling that time she said, “Something I went through, which really fueled not only me and my spirit, but my work, was that my mother, on her deathbed, really felt that she hadn't done much with her life. And that really affected me deeply.” During the rest of the pandemic, Bedikian also worked nights as a teacher assistant. At the same time, she was navigating the struggles of online school for her kids who were in kindergarten. But, despite the sadness and chaos of those years, Bedikian said, “I was fueled by my mother's death to sort of, in my own way, be better each day. Be stronger, be more dedicated to my poetry, to my callings in life . . . then my second book came out.”
That book was Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body. Explaining the first part of the title, Bedikian said “jagadakeer” is an Armenian word that means “fate” or “destiny.” Breaking it down even further, “jagad” means “forehead” and “keer” is an English transliteration of “letter” or “writing” in Armenian. Together, “jagadakeer” translates to “the writing on your forehead.” This was also a word that her father talked about sometimes, which stuck with her and her family. This book follows up on her first, The Book of Lamenting, which won the Philip Levine Prize in Poetry in 2010 and was published in 2011. “Apology to the Body” is what Bedikian was originally going to title her second book, had she published it right after her first. It was going to cover her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 1999. However, from 2012 to 2013, when her father became ill and soon passed away while she was pregnant with her twin boys, Bedikian hit a wall. She recalled:
It was very strange to experience his demise at the same time as bringing life into the world. So, what happened was I couldn't do it. I couldn't put a book together . . . my life, my mind, my soul—everything was infiltrated by death and birth . . . it was such a strange dichotomy.
Because of the large gap between books, Bedikian considers her second book as a collected works of the last decade or so. And, with the title, she intends to memorialize her parents and return to what she wanted to say years ago.
On her evolution as a writer, beginning with her first book, Bedikian told me she was careful about what she was writing, what her parents might see, how she might come across as a young Armenian woman, and the attitude she was presenting. She also shared:
I didn't realize that attitude is sometimes stronger than metaphor, simile, anaphora—all these poetic devices. Like sometimes you have to put your personality on the page, and it may not be easy to do so if you haven't developed your personality because you're still young. So, I think age has been a blessing to me. It has made me a little more courageous in my writing.
Still, Bedikian noted that she tries to be careful in other respects, such as with any internalized unhealthy thoughts that may be unhelpful to her writing or anyone else. Overall, she said, “I'm still me, but I'm a completely different version. Like, how the younger generation would talk about iPhones or computers, I'm the newest version—the most updated version of me!”
I then asked Bedkian to tell me about the process of writing poetry books. She described that, for Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body, her process was comparable to an architect’s, and said, “I kind of had to figure out what kind of home I wanted for these thoughts—for these poems. And I had to construct that accordingly.” She decided that it would be in five parts, which are (in order): “Hiereeg [means father in Armenian],” “Miereeg [means mother in Armenian],” “Yehs [means I in Armenian],” “In Lieu of an Epilogue,” and “Jagadakeer: In Remission”. On writing the last part, which is a longer poetic sequence, Bedikian explained:
It was this crazy thing where I would write at night, and I knew that I had something festering in me, and it had to go into the book. So, when I wrote it out, I realized—oh, it's my way of closing the book.
She went on to compare it to a play in its long fifth act, where everyone patiently waits to see what is going on, realizing that all the acts are coming together, and some new stuff is being revealed too. She added that it is the section where she leaves people knowing what she wants them—not necessarily to understand—but to hear. Moreover, on her overall experience with poetry books, Bedikian shared:
You know, you have conversations with your poems. And when I have those conversations, they sometimes are very intense. So, organizing helps me quiet down and helps the poem quiet down, so that we can go: “Okay, we need to work together because we wanna make a book.”
Aside from her own poetry, Bedikian also teaches poetry workshops, so I asked her about why she teaches and how she approaches that. She then expressed that she loves teaching workshops because writing can be a lonely process. Being a people person, the workshops offer her interaction with participants. She loves engaging in discussions, learning from them, and sharing her experiences with other writers. One piece of wisdom she shares with participants is that there is no such thing as writer’s block. They just need to sit and start. Explaining what she noticed, Bedikian said:
I think the problem is that people who take the workshops think that the finished product is coming out. No, no, no . . . this is like kids, it's like playtime. It's like we're finger painting or playing with language. You're playing with ideas. Sometimes, if you're lucky, something comes out and it's very close to the final stage, and it's like, “What is that?” But that also comes from, maybe, experience.
She later added, “There’s nothing perfect in life or in art. And we need to embrace that. If we embrace that, we can get over it. We’d probably be nicer to ourselves and to others.” I mean, what could be truer than that?
In addition to her workshops, Bedikian is also on the Advisory Board for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA), an honor she holds with pride. She was first contacted to join several years ago (during the pandemic) by founder and President of IALA, Armenian-American writer and journalist Olivia Katrandjian. Bedikian then recalled:
I had written an article about that, years and years ago, about how that type of an organization should exist. And lo and behold, all of a sudden, the idea comes. I'm invited to be part of that idea. And I'm like, wow, I can't believe it . . . it's actually happening.
As an advisory board member, Lory provides her support and ideas to IALA. She previously suggested they start up a grant program, especially for young Armenian writers, and stressed the importance of mentorship. IALA has followed through with both. Also, they have been very supportive of Bedikian’s work. IALA recently helped advertise her second book and set up a reading with Brian Turner, the judge who selected her first book for the Philip Levine Prize in Poetry, making it the most meaningful reading for Bedikian.
After learning about her work with IALA, I told Bedikian that I really admired her advocacy because, on a personal note, I am very big on “representation matters” in my field, the film industry. When I told her that this was something I hoped to pursue in my career, she told me, “You absolutely will. The fact that you have that in you means that it won't go away,” which was such a touching and encouraging sentiment to hear.
Shifting focus to more recent events at the top of this year, 2025, I asked Bedikian about her experience with the wildfires that ravaged parts of Southern California, including areas near her home. She said she first heard the news from a neighbor, who was evacuating, on January 7th, the day after Armenian Christmas and when her sons had just returned to school. Through an app, they found out they were two streets away from one of the fires, so Bedikian and her family decided to self-evacuate. She said it was the most frightening thing they had ever been through. She recalled, “The nightmare that I saw in my head, ahead of time, was that at two in the morning, three in the morning, they come and say, ‘You’ve got to get out.’ I . . . I didn’t think I could do it.” So they evacuated of their own accord. Fortunately, Bedikian and her family were able to return to an home that was still standing, afterwards. Still, Bedikian expressed, “My heart goes out to LA. My heart goes out to the people who lost their homes.”
Months prior to the wildfires, at the end of October, 2024, disaster had already struck when Bedikian’s eldest brother got into a terrible car accident that left him in a coma. They were told that he might be in a coma for a year or two. Miraculously, he woke up and is currently in recovery. Of the impact of this situation on her, Bedikian mentioned:
So, I've been writing a lot about my brother and his accident. That has sort of taken me back to moments of our childhood which I hadn't investigated or gone back to, maybe because . . . I wasn't stopped. You know, when something tragic happens, you sort of stop and then you go, “Huh.” And then you linger in moments that you didn't think you needed to linger in.
Some of the writing about this experience will appear in Issue 15 of MORIA, so I asked her to elaborate on her relationship with her brother and her motivations for this work. Bedikian said that she was estranged from her brothers, including the eldest, of her own accord, revealing:
There were a lot of issues, and it was so hard after my parents passed to be able to continue any sort of familial relationships with them because there were too many feelings. There were too many unsaid and unexplored moments of our childhood all the way up to that moment of their death.
Furthermore, what was very difficult for Bedikian to accept was that her brother was barely starting a new phase in his life, getting a new apartment, days before the accident. It was supposed to mark a fresh start with her brothers. But she realized that she could either wallow in regret or move forward and make the most of things. So, she chose the latter, comparing the situation to the act of writing itself:
You realize, well, I wanted to write about that, and I was about to write about that, but now all of a sudden, my attention is being taken this way in a completely different part of the trip . . . if you just accept it, it's easier to write. It's easier to allow certain parts of your voice to emerge.
After all that has happened, Bedikian believes that disasters can become blessings in strange ways if they are allowed to be, and she identifies her current work as a positive outcome of such tragedies.
To round out our interview, I asked Bedikian to tell me about what she envisions for her future as a poet and, in general, as herself:
As Lory, and as a poet, I think the greatest gift I can give to myself is acceptance . . . of who I am, who I've become, and who I'm going to be . . . learning how to forgive myself so that I can forgive others . . . and just being better. Trying to realize that it's really hard to be a woman and human being, especially today, so I'm just going to accept Lory the way she is. I also think compassion is super missing. And maybe if I could just pass that along to my kids, they will do things so that I can be happy for them, so that they can feel proud of themselves. I want them to follow their dreams too.
In terms of my poetry, I plan to kick ass. I plan to make up for lost time. People keep telling me, “There's no such thing.” Yes, there is! I lost some time. That's okay. And I'm gonna make up for it. I'm going to try to be the person that I dreamt of when I was eight, when I was 18, and when I was 28. There were so many versions of me that I dreamt of. I was supposed to work toward those dreams. But I don't blame myself anymore. And, in terms of poetry, I'm going to keep writing. I'm never going to forsake that again.
Looking forward, I just plan on continuing to write, continuing to teach, and hoping for compassion and self-acceptance with both poetry and me. In terms of being realistic, I really hope I can find work. I hope I can help take care of a lot of things that my husband and I have to figure out for ourselves, our children, our future. I have faith it's all going to work out.
That concluded my conversation with Lory Bedikian. A poet. A daughter of immigrants. A sister. A wife. A mother. A woman. A human being who embraces traveling through life imperfectly and who finds optimism even in her darkest moments.
Gelina mae liobing
Gelina Mae Liobing is MORIA's poetry editor for Issue 15. She’s currently a 3rd-year student pursuing a B.A. in Filmmaking, set to graduate in spring 2026. She chose to study filmmaking because she loves how the craft lends itself to delving into various other artforms and disciplines. And as an Asian-American woman of Filipino and Chinese descent, in film, Gelina is also deeply passionate about supporting diverse representation and uplifting underrepresented communities like her own.
Bedikian Photo Credit: The Light Committee