Book Review: Modern Greek Poetry in Translation

By Orestes Varvitsiotes
Modern Greek poetry carries on in the tradition of an enduring legacy, which has its roots in the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, the lyric poets and the dramatists of antiquity, and the bucolic and epigrammatic poetry of the Hellenistic period; after stagnating during the Roman period, it is revived again in the Byzantine and Venetian era, and then flourished as demotic poetry during the period of he Ottoman rule. After Greece’s independence, Greek poetry exhibited a new vigor in the works of Solomos, Kalvos and Valaoritis, faltered with the neo-classicists of the Athens school, was salvaged by Palamas and reached its heights with the generation of the thirties. It still continues to show an impressive vigor even in today’s not-so-friendly for poetry environment.

Indeed, Greek poetry has provided two Nobel Prize winners, George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, the universally acclaimed Nikos Kazantzakis and Yannis Ritsos, and, of course, Constantine Cavafy, who is certainly considered one of the greatest poets of last century, if not the greatest.

Even with such a great tradition, however, Modern Greek poetry has not become widely known nor has it been appreciated sufficiently .This lack of knowledge or interest is reflected in the 1952 edition of A Little Treasury of World Poetry, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, which begin with Homer and end with Odysseas Elytis. In between, there are 43 poems from the antiquity, two of unknown but of a later period, and only five from the Modern Greek period: one poem each of Cavafy, Sikelianos, Seferis, Engonopoulos and Elytis.

This may sound like a paradox today. But that’s how the situation was then, before American and English academics established the significance of modern Greece in poetry; before Ritsos and Kazantzakis became known and appreciated. Even Cavafy was hardly known then. In this connection, it must be mentioned here that two American academics played a pioneering role in the discovery in this country of Modern Greek poetry: Kimon Friar, by his translation of Kazantzakis’ Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, and Rae Dalven’s first translation of the poetry of Cavafy and Ritsos. In fact, it was in the introduction to her book that the English poet, W. H. Auden, underscored the great significance of Cavafy’s work in the literature of the Twentieth Century and his influence on the work of other poets.

It is important here to note that two of the editors of A Century of Greek Poetry, Edmund Keeley and Peter Bien, also began publishing translations of Greek prose and poetry at the time. Actually, it has been speculated that Keeley’s extensive translations of the work of Seferis contributed to his becoming known in this country and beyond and this possibly played a crucial role in being awarded the Nobel Prize.

Even so, however, the public’s familiarity with Modern Greek poetry has been narrow and limited. Constantine A. Trypanis, an English academic and translator, in commenting about Greek poetry, is quoted in the inside flap of A Century of Greek Poetry as making the following assertion: “[Greek poetry,] although it has one of the longest and perhaps noblest tradition in the Western world, in the last hundred years greater and more original poetry has been written in Greek than in the previous fourteen centuries which preceded them.” This fine poetry, however, has not to my knowledge been presented in its vastness to the American public, which, of course, is what these two voluminous works intend to rectify.

The editors of Modern Greek Poetry: An Anthology, Nanos Valaoritis and Thanasis Maskaleris, are both poets as well as professors of literature; their interest, therefore, in Greek poetry is professional and the knowledge of their subject comprehensive. Instead of simply publishing the translated poems in some sequence, they have bunched together the poets into schools: Symbolist Forerunners, Traditional Neo-Symbolists, Mainstream Modernists, Surrealists, Modern Existentialists, Left-Wing Poets, the Avant-Garde, Neo-Modernists and the Neo-Surrealists. One may squabble for the breakdown, but there is a short introduction in every chapter of each particular school, which should be very helpful to the uninitiated or student, because it seems that some of today’s poetry is incomprehensible to a large segment of the reading public.

In the main Introduction, there is a lengthier general overview of Modern Greek poetry, covering the time since Greece’s independence from the Ottoman Turks. There is also a very brief, but adequate, biographical sketch of each poet, and occasionally even allusions to Greek historical events, which might have influenced the mood and thoughts of the intelligentsia and is reflected in the literature of the period.

The Anthology begins with the poetry of Cavafy (whose name is spelled closer to the Greek original, Kavafis), and includes the other three major poets of the period: Kazantzakis, Sikelianos and Varnalis, who, with Palamas, greatly influenced the poets of the generation of the thirties, who contributed so much to Greece’s poetic renaissance.

With the publication of George Seferis’ Mythistorima in 1935, a new style in writing poetry was ushered in in Greece, as it did again with Nikos Gatsos’ Amorgos in 1943. Greek poetry has evolved further—and it is still evolving today. But no doubt, it is great poetry even to the most demanding. If only one would spare the time and make the effort to read—there is a lot to enjoy in this voluminous book.

….The following is by Nikos Engonopoulos:

HYMN TO THE GLORY OF THE WOMEN WE LOVE

the women we love are pomegranates /
they come and find us /
at night /
when it’s raining /
with their breasts they abolish our solitude /
they thrust themselves deep in our hair /
and adorn it /
like glittering tears /
like radiant shores /
like pomegranates/

the women we love are swans /
their gardens live only in our hearts /
their wings /
are wings of angels /
their statues are our bodies /
the beautiful rows of trees are they themselves /
standing on tip-toe /
they come close /
and when they kiss us /
on our eyes /
they are swans/

the women we love are lakes /
our burning lips whistle in their reeds /
our beautiful birds swim in their waters /
and then /
as they soar up—proud as they are—/
they reflect them /
the lakes /
on their banks the poplar trees are lyres /
whose music drowns all sorrows inside us /
and as they overflow our being /
with joy with calm /
the women we love are /
lakes/

the women we love are banners /
they wave in the winds of passion /
their long hair /
glitters at night /
with their warm hands /
they hold our lives /
their soft bellies /
are the arch of heaven /
they are our doors /
our windows/
our sailing skiffs/
our stars live near them always/
their colors utterances of love/
their lips are the sun and the moon/
and their cloth is the only shroud/
worthy of covering us:/
the women we love are banners

the women we love are forests/
each of their trees a signal of love/
and if in thee forests they make us lose our way/
it is exactly then/
that we find ourselves/
we are truly alive/
and when from afar we hear storms approaching/
and the wind brings us/
the music and the tumult/
of fairs/
or the trumpets of peril/
nothing—naturally—can frighten us;/
surely the thick foliages will protect us/
since the women we love are/
forests/

the women we love are like harbors/
(the only aim/
the only destination/
of our beautiful ships)/
their eyes are the breakwaters/
their shoulders semaphores of joy/
their thighs a line of amphoras on the warf/
their feet our lighthouses of tenderness/
–those who are nostalgic call her Katerina–/
their waves are marvelous caresses/
their Sirens do not deceive us/
but—friendly–/
they show us the way/
into harbors: the women we love/

the women we love possess a divine essence/
and when we hold them tightly/
in our arms/
we become one with the gods/
we rise up like ferocious towers/
–nothing can bring us down–/
and they with their white hands /
cling to us/
and all the peoples and nations/
come to worship us/
crying out our name/
–immortal through the ages/
because the women we love/
transfer to us as well/
their divine/
essence/

(Translated by THANASIS MASKALERIS)

Because it is bilingual, A Century of Greek Poetry, 1900-2000, it is much larger. It is also aesthetically of a better quality. In the acknowledgements we discover the reason why: the publisher expresses his gratitude to the Niarchos Foundation for “making this anthology possible”, which explains to us how it became possible to publish such a beautiful edition. We too are grateful for that to the Niarchos Foundation.

The selections in this volume begin with the poetry of Cavafy; it includes all the big names of the “generation of the thirties”, which, of course, is indeed one of the most productive and significant periods in Greek literary history, and then features representative work of the newer generation of poets. It is the poetry of this newer generation which I personally find rewarding, as this is the first time I have been exposed to it, and I am really grateful for the opportunity.

For instance, I had heard of Kiki Dimoula from some of my relatives who were her close friends while growing up in Athens during the period after liberation from the German occupation, and who have kept the relationship to this day. Also, I had heard of her becoming a member of the Athens Academy, the first woman poet to do so; and this is heavy stuff. But I was not familiar with her poetry: its sweet melancholy, its quiet despair, its humanity. Here is an example:

SIGN OF RECOGNITION

Statue of a woman with tied hands

They all straight away call you a statue/
I straight away address you as woman./

You decorate some park./
From a distance you deceive./
One would think you had lightly sat up/
To remember a beautiful dream you had/
and are now setting off to live it./
Close up the dream clears:/
your hands are tied behind you/
with a marble rope/
and your pose is your will/
to find something to help you escape/
the anguish of the captive./
You can’t/
Even weigh rain in your hand/
not even a light daisy./
Your hands are tied./

And it’s not only Argos that’s marble. /
If something were to change/
in the course of marble/
if statues would start struggles/
for freedom and equality/
like the slaves/
the dead/
and our feelings,/
you would march/
within the cosmology of marble/
with your hands again tied, a captive./

They all straight away call you statue/
I immediately call you woman./
Not because the sculptor consigned you/
to the marble as woman/
so your haunches promise/
fertility of statues/
a good crop of immobility./

For your tied hands, which you’ve/
had for all the many centuries I’ve know you/

I call you woman./

I call you woman
because you’re a captive.

(Translated by KATERINA ANGHELAKI-ROOKE AND PHILIP RAMP)

In a way, both editions cover the same ground, the poetry of the entire century. And in both anthologies there are so many new poets, so many good poems, and it may be unfair that they cannot all be mentioned in this brief review. But they all can be read. I can’t think of a better present to one’s self or loved ones than these two books of Modern Greek poetry.

(ovarvitsiotes@aol.com)