Kherdian’s lyrics are delicate sketches of life’s joys: his wife, their cat, their home in the country. His credo is “keeping it good and simple,” and his poetry provides a glimpse into a Thoreau-like existence. These poems convey not only sweetness but a sense of constancy and renewal.
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Kherdian celebrates freedom, innocence, tenderness. He shuns verbal pyrotechnics, experimentation, recondite, symbolism; refuses to prove anything, promise nothing. Look around you, he seems to be telling us, the world is a celebration; every moment a condensation of eternity filled with joy, beauty, and a truth that makes all philosophies irrelevant. Kherdian performs this minor miracle by employing the most ordinary means. At its best, a Kherdian poem has this in common with a Bach prelude; it is not only beautiful but an explanation of beauty.
Ara Baliozian