Poetry Greece in latest, possibly final, publication
In its short lifetime, the biannual poetry magazine Poetry Greece has cultivated a dedicated readership for its translations of modern Greek poetry, articles on and interviews of poets, and discussions of the nature of poetry and the challenges of translating it well. Sadly, this small corner of civilized virtue may be in the process of passing away for the most mundane and modern of reasons: money, or rather the lack of it. A shortfall in funding was apparent in the previous issue (No. 5) last year, and the current issue (No. 6, Winter 2001/2002) comes in the same, telling spiral binding. This time, an editorial by Wendy Holborow explains the cutbacks while introducing the contents; and a separate letter, clearly inserted after the issue was printed and bound, explains that Poetry Greece is being put on hold «pending funding,» which is hardly promising but still leaves the door open to publishing again on a regular basis. Meantime, though, the magazine will continue to hold its annual Keeley-Sherrard translating award and to publish on its website (http://users.otenet.gr/~wendyhol/poetry-greece/). With this melancholic news awaiting the reader, reviewing the contents seems superfluous; and it is sad to see a project that falters even while still publishing worthy poetry, filling a clear niche, and (one of its strongest suits) sustaining a lively international discussion on what poetry is all about. We read, for example, that poetry is «a music of words… a way of seeing and interpreting the world and our experience of it, and of conveying to the listener a heightened awareness of it through an intense concentration of metaphor and words in which the natural flow of speech sounds is molded to some kind of formal pattern.» This comes not from an editorial statement or an article, but from a letter to the editor. This issue, which includes Delia Delderfield’s charming illustrations, again focuses on the translation theme. For example, it usefully juxtaposes two different translations of the same poem, as (here) with versions of Costas Karyiotakis’s «Oloi Mazi» («All Together»), both shortlisted for the 2002 Keeley-Sherrard poetry translation award. Eleni Tsalicogious’s opening lines read: «All together, like a mob in motion, / We rummage around for a decent rhyme, / An ambition so dignified, so fine / Has become our life’s permanent aspiration,» while Keith Taylor and Bill Reader offer: «We set out all together, / riffraff searching for rhymes, / Such a lofty ambition / has become the purpose of our lives.» The striking variation in word choice and general «punchiness» raises questions that everyone, non-experts in poetry or translation included, can find interesting. Much of the content is original Greek verse in translation (e.g. Pavlos Pezaros’s poems «Psalm of Betrayal» and «The Captivity of Memory»), along with an interview (with Titos Patrikios) and includes another «poet from the past,» Nikos Gatsos, with two long poems, «Amorgos» and «Death and the Knight» (original and translated). The former is considered a classic of postwar Greek surrealism, while the latter evokes an earlier, more heroic age: «But you will stay motionless; / with the steed of Acritas and the lance of Saint George / you will journey through the ages, / a restless hunter from the generation of heroes, / with these dark forms that will assist you always, / until one day you too will vanish with them forever, / until you become a fire again in the great womb of Fate that gave you birth.» One hopes that Poetry Greece, like the knight, does not vanish forever, but merely takes a break until another savior – a literary foundation? a private benefactor? a cultural institute? – decides to help an eminently worthy, and surely cost-effective, publishing cause. No Man’s Land
