Part of the Generation of the 30s—a group of Greek modernist writers and artists—George Sarantaris has not received as much attention as the writers of that era, such as the Nobel laureate and poet Giorgos Seferis. This Translation Tuesday, translator Pria Louka brings five of Sarantaris’ poems into English. Read on and appreciate these imagistic, mist-like poems—philosophical and sensual in their very reticence and brevity.
Philosophy
For Kostas Despotopoulos
Conversation with the object
a lonesome thing,
deliberate silence
from an unknown listener
approaches us
and binds,
about us hums
a mythical insect
a God
The Mist
The mist teems
With anemones
Look at the branches
What a lake
What impatient heart
Peer into
The right drop
What drive
Takes the child
What languor
The woman
The Violets
Lights like garments
Dress the bodies
Of those
Whom we loved
And whom we left
Or who left us
Without a goodbye
Never did we expect
Such a spectacle
Our eyes
Did not foresee
So many lilies
We were destined to lose sleep
Without protest
To scatter among violets
And meet again
[Make way I am one]
Make way I am one
Who shoves the wind
One who bears mountains
On his back
For birds to sit
And sing
[You chop down a tree]
You chop down a tree
And it’s as though you chop
A finger,
Becomes honey
The tree
At some point becomes
Bird,
But then
Bids you farewell
Translated from the Greek by Pria Louka
George Sarantaris (1908–1941) was a Greek poet born in Constantinople and raised in Italy. Over his lifetime, he composed more than a thousand poems, developing a distinct poetic world that evokes the sparse, light-filled Greek landscape. Sarantaris died in the 1940 Greco-Italian War tragically fighting against the country of his upbringing, Italy.
Pria Louka is a writer and translator of Greek poetry. A book of her translations of George Sarantaris’ poetry, Abyss and Song: Selected Poems is forthcoming with World Poetry Books (April 2023). She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship that has allowed her to pursue her passion for modern Greek literature. She is the author of The Courage to Walk and Write (Alphabetics) and has published an extensive photographic essay on Greece. Louka, a graduate of Princeton University, currently lives in Thessaloniki, Greece.
*****
Read more from Translation Tuesdays on the Asymptote blog: