Author bio and translation from the original Russian by Alex Simand.

Bardan Bagdassarian, nee Fedotov, was born in 1936 to an Armenian woman and a Russian man in a small village one hour west of Ijivan, in the North of Armenia—then a part of the USSR. His mother Luda Bagdassarian came from many generations of hill dwellers, mostly goat herders and textile manufacturers. Her hands were notoriously callused from hours spent stitching ornamental carpets for high-ranking communist party members. Writes Bardan in his as-yet-unpublished memoir, “Mother’s fingers scraped like birch bark on my cheeks when she tucked me in. There was a comfort to this, too, like the snug warmth of a wool blanket on a cold night.” His father, Sergey Alexeyivich Fedotov, was an intellectual, hailing from the Russian capital of Moscow. He studied and taught Discrete Mathematics at the University of Moscow for many years before disappearing from academic circles in the early 1930’s. How it is that Bardan’s father found himself in rural hills of Armenia remains a mystery, as does the unlikely courtship that followed of Bardan’s mother.

Bardan is an accomplished mathematician in his own rite. He spent the bulk of his childhood learning from his father; the nearest school was over an hour away by mule, so Sergey took up the task of his son’s education in their small cottage. By fifteen, Bardan had proven two of Descartes’ more obscure theorems. He never submitted them for peer review. From his mother he learned to speak fluent Armenian. From his father he learned fluent Russian. In 1952, at the age of sixteen and with the blessings of his parents, Bardan left home.

Since 1952, Bardan has adopted dozens of vocations. Paramedic. Train engineer. Magician. Mathematician. Flautist. Au pair. He studied Russian Formalism, Deconstructionism, the Bauhaus School of Art, anthropology, archeology, and many other fields. He even had a brief stint as a porn writer and director. His films never took off, but Bardan said that he sought in them, “[…] a way to transcend the carnal absurdity of the friction of genitalia, to create a physical manifestation of true love.” Bardan currently resides in Patagonia, where he acts as Head of Agricultural Studies at the University of Argentina Patagonia. He remains unmarried.

Bardan developed a fascination with Japanese poetry when he visited Japan as the president of the International Mycological Society in 1972. He embarked on a journey to seek foraging locations for the famed, and eminently sought-after, Matsutake mushroom. He discovered—through the quiet intimation of locals—that he had inadvertently followed the pilgrim’s path of Matsuo Basho, as Basho describes in his poetry and prose collection, “Road to the Narrow Interior.” Bardan has been a poet ever since. He changed his name in 1973 from Bardan Fedotov to his nom de plume, his mother’s maiden name, Bagdassarian.

Bagdassarian’s poetry bears the unusual characteristic of being written in all caps. It is unclear when this began, but those who know Bardan claim that this is the most natural of things. Martin Amis, with whom Bardan was acquainted during a short London stint in the 1980’s, writes in an interview with The Paris Review, “The use of capital letters in Bagdassarian’s work is a reflection of his physical voice. It’s not that he speaks loudly, exactly, but one might describe it as a bellow nonetheless. His voice is that of a lesser deity—not an Odin or a Zeus but, perhaps, Orpheus. He carries fire in his words.” Bardan’s work has been described as at once primal and tender, forceful and gentle.

The following is a small collection of Bardan Bagdassarian’s haikus. He wrote them during his accidental pilgrimage in Japan.

FATHER AND MOTHER
ON THE WIND, RUSTLING THE LEAVES.
I TASTE LAMB GRISTLE!

RED-CAPPED BOLETUS,
YOUR FUNGAL EMBER SMOLDERS
UNDER PILGRIM TOES.

THERE, CRICKETS YELLING,
INVISIBLE, FURIOUS,
I JOIN YOUR CHORUS.

SWEET SLICK NAMEKO.
MIRACULOUS, TAWNY, TINY,
PICKLED FOR BREAKFAST.

THE LAKE’S VAPORS RISE
CLEAR, TASTELESS, STITCHED TOGETHER
LIKE A TAPESTRY.

TINY EYEBALLS GLARE
FROM THE GLOOM OF FOLLIAGE,
DARK, GREEN, UNBLINKING.

MATSU, GIVE ME GOLD!
UNDER PINE BOUGHS THEY MUST GROW.
LAY OPEN YOUR GIFTS!

IF I HAD BUT FOUR
INSTEAD OF FIVE LONG FINGERS,
WOULD THE SUN STILL RISE?