The Anthology of New Greek Poetry is the last of the Anthologies of Young Poets series and the one that completes the circle of this special project of Vakxikon Publications that aimed to bring to Greek readers contemporary poetic voices from all over Europe. Evripidis Garantoudis and Sofia Kolotourou anthologized the poems that were included and on the occasion of the anthology’s release they talked to Vakxikon.gr about its poetic content and modern Greek poetry.
Interview: Aggeliki Dimopoulou
How did you work regarding the sellection of the poems included in the Anthology of New Greek Poetry? What poetic characteristics do the poets included in it have?
Our anthology is part of the publishing series “Anthologies of young poets” of European languages or countries. Therefore, it was harmonized with the general specifications of the entire publishing program in terms of the length of the introduction and the book. The anthology therefore includes poets who write in the Greek language, were up to 40 years old in 2021 and have published at least one poetry book. Specifically, 18 poets and 6 poets have been included. For reasons of principle, poets who have had their books published by Vakxikon Publications have not been included. Also, poets of Cypriot origin, who also write in Greek language, have not been included, as they have been included in the Anthology of Young Cypriot Poets, which was released in 2018 as part of the same series.
What are those important points of convergence of modern Greek poetry that you obtained and would note through your work for the creation of this anthology?
In relation to the previous division of the work of post-junta era poets into generations, there is no agreement that the young Greek poets and poets of this anthology constitute a poetic generation, while the vast majority of them themselves do not accept such a collective designation. Given that the young poets appeared in the field of poetry towards the end of the 2000s and continued to write poetry afterwards, the question arises as to whether and to what extent their work was determined by the crisis. Considering the local poetic production in general, we find that while until 2011 the economic and social crisis was probably little thematized in Greek poetry, then and until today the poems that directly or suggestively, in a cryptically abstract or explicitly referential way, thematized many and varied aspects of the crisis were becoming more and more dense. The crisis, therefore, defined a political and social environment and at the same time a field of multiple tensions more or less inescapable by all and it is undoubtedly witnessed as a common thematic area in the work of young poets. Obviously there are other, more internal, points of convergence that concern, beyond thematic, the expressive stigma of the poets, but these points are not found in their entirety but in smaller groups.
Are there any current socio-political issues in your opinion that particularly affect contemporary Greek poetry?
As we mentioned above, the work of the young poets was determined by the crisis, understood as the set of its various and interdependent aspects (economic hardship or impoverishment ofparts the population, radical reformation of the political scene, social unrest and insecurity, change or reversal of values, disrepute of institutions or even institutional collapse, forcing many young people, especially scientists, to flee abroad, etc.) But it is not important, in our opinion, to perceive the crisis as a term for their common grammatological definition – it would be naive to call them the “crisis generation” or something related – we just mainly consider the crisis as the dominant condition in which the literary and critical field of young poetry was largely formed.
Why would you recommend to the readers to read the Anthology of New Greek Poetry?
The youth poetry of each language – country is connected to the local specificities, as they emerged from the local political and social history, in other words the individual country, society and culture developments of the last decades, experienced by the poets. In this light, the joint reading of the poems in the present anthology offers an, albeit partial and obviously refracted through the choices of the anthologists, panorama of the poetry of young Greek poets, which provokes stimuli and feeds thoughts.
How important do you think it is that we “listen” to younger poetic voices?
As Giorgos Seferis wrote: “We, it cannot be differently, still remember what we gave. He will only remember what he gained from each of his offers. What can a flame remember? If it remembers a little less than it needs to, it goes out; if it remembers a little more than it needs to, it goes out. If only could teach us, for as long as it lights up, to remember correctly. I’m done; if only someone else could start where I finished”.[1] We, the older poets and readers of poetry listen to the younger poetic voices always longing to discover our descendants, those who will receive the poetic baton and continue the thread of poetry from the point where we reached it and left it. However, we also have the expectation of interaction, poetic osmosis and conversation between us, the older and the younger, in order to cultivate a healthy poetic rivalry and to achieve a connection that will make us better in our work.
What do you keep from your engagement with this particular anthology?
What we maintain is that poetry, young and not, is essentially one, unified and indivisible, as it continues and will continue its lonely way, alongside the flood of prose, as an expression of need, in this case the need of its most dynamic core, that of its new creators, for the most condensed and thoughtful expression of the human condition possible.
[1] Giorgos Seferis, “Mr. Stratis Thalassinos describes a man”, Book of Exercises, Poems, Athens, Ikaros 1992 (17th edition), pp. 120-123