The Circle Dancers

A poet of exile and ruins, Der-Hovanessian concerns herself, in her 15th collection, with restoring and preserving the memory of Armenia and its culture in the face of the 20th century's depredations. Shadows of other poets flit through these pages, too, as in ""For Stanley Kunitz Reading,"" ""John Berryman Playing Chess"" and ""The Poet Magician,"" about Gerald Stern. It is, however, the ghost of William Carlos Williams that looms largest in the most striking poems, especially when Der-Hovanessian adopts Williams's style of three-line sentence stanzas: ""I was protected from all knowledge/ of evil before the burden of/ an Armenian past became mine."" A fine faculty for sonnets and villanelles also surfaces, particularly in the first sections, in which she writes about her family with themes that explore learning, celebrate tradition and hint at adult political awakenings. But form is very much a means to an end that is unabashedly--and sometimes too simply--declamatory. The poems all have a tinge of yearning and sorrow for an exiled culture and are mixed with a desire for action: ""This is a love poem for you/ who thought we had forgotten you/ ...with our foreign tongues/ with our foreign names."" At her best, Der-Hovanessian brings together love for a fragmented nation with a call to action and a straightforward expression of allegiance. (Apr.)