Publisher’s Nestoras Poulakos speech at the Forum for the poetry experts of the Ars Poetica Festival, in Bratislava (12/11/2021)
Good evening, my name is Nestoras Poulakos from Vakxikon Publications in Athens, Greece. We publish the largest output of Greek and foreign contemporary poetry books at the moment. Other than showcasing Greek poets, our priority is to translate foreign contemporary poets into Greek, who, despite their established value, wouldn’t easily see their books translated and published, especially in my country. This is because, as is frequently the case worldwide, publishing houses tend to direct their attention more on prose and less on poetry.
The basic reason we have focused on foreign poetry is because we need to converse poetically with other languages and other places. Our publishing group began 15 years ago as a blog purely oriented towards poetry. Gradually, one thing brought the other – yet always revolving around poetry: Vakxikon.gr, our online magazine, Vakxikon web radio, our eponymous publications and the subsequent thematic European projects like the one we have been running since 2018: “Youngpoets” aspires to compile new European poetry into anthologies, in all 56 different languages of our continent, side by side with their Greek translations.
Prompted by the “Youngpoets” project – which I believe is worth discovering through the Ars Poetica Festival – I cannot but stress this multicultural intersection of verses through languages, cultures and nations. Besides, the main motto of our project is “Poetry unites countries, nations, languages, people!”
This multicultural cross-over of poetry is first and foremost a need of the poets themselves – and the same also applies to organizers of international poetry festivals, or book publishers who are very well aware that publishing and promoting solely the poetry of their native countries is not enough. Poetry is not approached in the same way as prose. It has other qualities and commercial criteria, and not quite the same readers. The essential need for its international promotion, its dialogue with the poetry of artistic peers, its public readings before festival audiences, its inclusion in anthologies and projects around the world, these are and must be the main priorities of poets and publishers alike.
As a consequence, it is through this lens that I and my team view our role in the cultivation and promotion of the poetry on our desks – both Greek and foreign. Both reflect what is currently going on in the poet’s country, no matter how personal his or her style may be – by the same token, poetry has two or even three levels of reading. It may also indicate the current developments in the language of the poem, its trends, richness, and mode of use.
One of our main objectives when we started the “Poetry from all over the world” book series back in 2014 was to focus on translating and publishing foreign poetry and bringing poets to Greece so that Greek readers would become acquainted with them. Seven years later, we have released 75 books by contemporary poets, some of whom I see in the program of this year’s Ars poetica festival: Bruno Doucey, Mila Haugová, and Tom Schulz.
It is thanks to them that the multicultural endeavor we have been pursuing is bearing fruit – giving me the opportunity to be here today and talk to you in the forum of Ars Poetica. So, I invite you all to join us, so we can publish your poetry in Greek. Thank you!