[MGSA-L] Crisis poetry emerges amid Greek tough times

[June Samaras]

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2011/12/09/feature-05

Crisis poetry emerges amid Greek tough times

09/12/2011

   Many Greeks find respite in an old remedy in time of crisis and
uncertainties.

By Andy Dabilis for Southeast European Times in Athens -- 09/12/11
photo

The National Library in Athens hosted the Crisis Poetry reading. [Andy
Dabilis/SETimes]

Euripides, a Greek writer of tragedy, said that, "Greeks know words
[are] like daggers." Through millennia, Greek poets have used the
peculiar power of a precise language to stir souls, plumb the depths
of humanity, and stoke resistance against invaders and occupiers.

Modern-day Greeks are turning to poetry readings in an attempt to rid
their souls of the angst gripping many, as the country's economic
catastrophe created waves of fear, leaving 500,000 citizens without an
income, along with soaring suicide and homelessness rates.

A recent event titled Crisis Poetry, at the National Library in
Athens, drew a crowd of nearly 300. They listened to Greece's
best-known modern poets, including Nanos Valaoritis, 90, a friend of
Nobel Laureate poet George Seferis, and Titos Patrikios, reading their
works.

The event was organised by Dino Siotis, editor of Dekata, a periodical
that aims to keep poetry alive and includes works by both famous and
up-and-coming poets.

"When the country entered the crisis, people became more aware of
poetry and literature and want to hear what poets have to say," Siotis
told SETimes. He served as a press officer in the United States where
he was taught by Valaoritis -- at a time when Valaoritis gained even
more renown and churned out works inspired by his loathing of the
military rulers.

Siotis is a well-known poet himself. His recent work, Black Money, is
a searing attack on Greece's rich elite and the culture of corruption,
cronyism and favouritism that marks society and helped create the
crisis.

"This is not a financial crisis. It's a moral crisis," said Siotis,
adding that for this reason, poetry readings are drawing so many
seeking relief from the weight of worry.

Valaoritis, regarded as the most important poet of the Greek diaspora
since Constantine Cavafy, has seen times even tougher than today, and
recalls the dark days of World War II, the Nazi invasion, and people
dying in the streets from hunger.

"I had to walk over dead bodies every day during the German
occupation, and there were horse-drawn wagons, like in the Middle
Ages, filled with bodies; but even at that point, great poetry was
produced, to help people cope," he told SETimes.

At the time, poets such as Odysseas Elytis, another Greek Nobel
Laureate, emerged, and the works of Cavafy and surrealist Andreas
Embiricos were popular.

"Greeks were poets in the worst time of our history," he said,
including invasions by the Franks, Venetians, and the 400-year Ottoman
occupation that finally ended in 1830. "What the poets have to give is
very important. It keeps the morale of people going."

Patrikios, who barely survived being killed by collaborators during
WWII and was exiled to an island for three years after the Greek Civil
War in 1946 because of his Leftist ideals, said he was glad so many
showed up at the event.

"Poetry can create this atmosphere that in present times is lacking.
We live almost isolated; we don't communicate with others. Poetry can
help us be conscious of things in a more profound way," he told
SETimes.

Its territory he has explored in some of his best-known poems,
including Words Again, where he writes why people should not be
silent.

Yet the unspoken words beneath the tongue
the only ones that don't emerge from your mouth
they too gnaw from within
leaving shrivelled corpses
of people who tried to speak
when it was too late.

If only for a time, the poetry reading made life a little easier
before people had to return to the anxiety of wondering how to deal
with pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and layoffs.

Georgia Naka, a freelance translator, said she appreciates that the
poets understand what was behind the country's dilemma and how much
hurt it has caused.

"The crisis isn't just financial, it's a crisis of values and
aesthetics and I wanted to hear something different that would elevate
your soul and make you think. Poetry makes the ugliness of society
more beautiful," she told SETimes.

Apart from a brief statement last year, the country's arts and
literature society has been noticeably quiet during the crisis,
prompting the newspaper To Vima to wonder what had happened to its
vaunted reputation for speaking out.

The vacuum was partially taken over by anarchists scribbling graffiti
and throwing Molotov cocktails at the police, during the many
protests, riots and strikes that have engulfed the land.

"Regardless of the high standard of our modern poetry, its creators
abstain from making an issue of miserable topics such as the
impoverishment of a big number of people in the society," the paper
said.

Unlike the years of the junta and those that immediately followed, the
economic crisis has not yet spawned another Yiannis Ritsos,
Valaoritis, Cavafy, Elytis, Seferis or the like, although Siotis is
trying to keep the tradition alive.

In 1936, Ritsos, a Communist, in a celebrated work Epitaphios, took
aim at a right-wing dictatorship and wrote lines that still resonate
with the Greeks today:

Son, my flesh and blood, marrow of my bones, heart of my own heart,
sparrow of my tiny courtyard, flower of my loneliness.

Where did my boy fly away? Where's he gone? Where's he leaving me?
The bird-cage is empty now, not a drop of water in the fountain.
What ever made your dear eyes close and you are blind to my tears?
How are you frozen in your tracks and deàf to my bitter words?

In 1978, he said, "I wrote the Epitaph at a time when all the
intellectual movements around the world were creating diversions from
tradition … as a fortification of our national, racial identity
through purely folklore metres."

In a poem called Snapshots, Siotis wrote lines that have become
self-prophetic for Greeks.

There are times
When the only thing you can
Do is not to hope

Naka said she understands, even while glad for the bright relief of
poetry and those who write it.

"They can't really do anything," she said. "It's just escapism." But
for many Greeks, it's enough for now.
This content was commissioned for SETimes.com.

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June Samaras
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