Phrasing the Arts

by Dr. Abraham Terian

Abraham Terian, a well-known classicist, theologian and medievalist, has done it again in his latest book — but this time differently. The book, titled Phrasing the Arts, is a collection of poems mostly on the arts in all their forms. It is vol. 23 in the Armenian Series published by the Armenian Studies Program through The Press at California State University, Fresno (2025, printed in January 2026). In the author’s own words, he wrote these poems as an escape from strenuous scholarship, to express his profound  love for the arts. “Overall, the present collection, a commentary of sorts on the intersection of literary art and other arts, is but a verbal rumination on experiences in time and place, including some memorable places no longer confined to their geography.”

Even before publication, the book was highly praised for its literary merit. Timothy Skeen, Professor Emeritus of English at Fresno State and author of several poetry books, has this to say: “In Phrasing the Arts, the scholar Abraham Terian appeals to prosody ‘in the contemplation of truth’ to create a world of sublime beauty,” and concludes: “Terian’s poems demonstrate mastery of craft and form: line, stanza, image, repetition and metaphor; they remind the reader that the true subject of poetry is poetry itself.” 

Honora H. Chapman, Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, Fresno State, highlights the book’s “exquisite quotidian details” seen “through the lens of the author’s remarkable scholarship on ancient literature,” adding, with reference to a poem on a Roman mirror: “This collection inspires us all to look in the mirror once held by girls in Pompeii almost two thousand years ago and see not only the ‘brief moments of vanished tenderness’ but 
also the subtle and lasting beauty of the arts around us today.