Aram Saroyan



Aram Saroyan (born September 25, 1943) is an American poet, novelist, biographer, memoirist and playwright, most famous as the author of "lighght".

Life
Saroyan was born in New York City. His parents were playwright and author William Saroyan and actress Carol Grace and his sister was actress Lucy Saroyan. He is the father of Strawberry and Cream Saroyan. He is of Armenian and Jewish descent.

Writing
Saroyan's poetry has been widely anthologized and appears in many textbooks. Among the collections of his poetry are Aram Saroyan, Pages, and  Day & Night: Bolinas Poems, the latter published by Black Sparrow Press in 1998.

here has been a resurgence of interest in his work in the 21st century. In 2007 several previous collections were reissued together as Complete Minimal Poems by Ugly Duckling Presse of Brooklyn.

Saroyan's prose books include Genesis Angels: The Saga of Lew Welch and the Beat Generation; Last Rites, a book about the death of his father, the playwright and short story writer William Saroyan. In 1988, Saroyan wrote the teleplay for an episode of St. Elsewhere.

The UbuWeb site (linked below) says:

His 1968 book, Aram Saroyan, was almost a full-size representation of its contents as they could be presented in typescript or mimeograph, in Courier typeface, printed on one side of each leaf in what looked like unevenly inked print, with a total of only 30 poems. Edwin Newman, a reporter for NBC news, read the entire book aloud on the "NBC Evening News".

Lighght
One of Saroyan's most famous poems his 1965 poem "lighght" (which was simply the unconventionally spelled word "lighght" in the center of a blank page). This poem was selected by George Plimpton to be featured in The American Literary Anthology and, like all poems in the volume, received a $500 cash award from the National Endowment for the Arts, then just five years old. The NEA was created in the same year the poem was written, 1965. Many conservatives, such as Representative William Scherle and Senator Jesse Helms, objected at the per-word amount of the award, complaining that the word was not a real poem and was not even spelled correctly. This was the NEA's first major controversy; 25 years after it was written "Ronald Reagan was still making pejorative allusions to “lighght.” "

Saroyan currently teaches in University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program.

Recognition
The Poetry Society of America awarded Complete Minimal Poems the 2008 William Carlos Williams Award.