"I turn to you Art of Poetry,
where do you know about medicines;
sleep deprivation trials, in Imagination and Reason ”.
K. P. Cavafis
The original idea of celebrating World Poetry Day belongs to the Society of Writers and the poet Michael Mitra, who in the fall of 1997 proposed to adopt a day of celebration of poetry in Greece, as in other countries, and to set a specific day for it.
His proposal was adopted by the then president of the Company, Kostas Stergiopoulos. The poet Lydia Stefanou proposed as a day of celebration March 21, the first day after the vernal equinox, a day that combines the association of light with darkness, just as poetry combines the bright face of optimism with the dark veil of mourning. The first Poetry Day was celebrated in 1998 at the old post office in Kotzia square and was a great success.
The following year, the writer Vassilis Vassilikos, in his role as the president of the Society of Writers, as well as the ambassador of Greece to UNESCO, proposed to the Executive Board of the organization, that March 21st be declared World Poetry Day, just as June 21st had been instituted as World Poetry Day. Music Day. The French, the Italians, the Tunisians, as well as many other ambassadors from Mediterranean countries, supported the proposal, so the Greek proposal was upvoted.
In October 1999, when the UNESCO General Conference in Paris declared March 21 as World Poetry Day, the rationale for the decision stated: "World Poetry Day will enhance the image of poetry in the media so that poetry is no longer considered useless art, but an art that helps society find and strengthen its identity. Highly popular poetry readings may contribute to a return to orality and the socialization of live spectacle, and celebrations may be an occasion to strengthen poetry's links with the other arts, as well as with Philosophy, to redefine the phrase of Delacroix "There is no art without poetry".
Many events were organized for this year's celebration of World Poetry Day in Greece.
Among these events, the evening organized by PEN Greece on Monday, March 20, the Panhellenic Association of Writers and Friends of Literature, as envisioned by PEN International at its Conference in 1997, stood out. The event was hosted at the Enastron book cafe, located in No. 101 of Solonos Street, with a reading of poems written in Greek as well as poems translated into Greek or from Greek into foreign languages.
I quote one of the poems read in translation from Italian to Greek, a poem dedicated by the poet Giuseppe Carracchia to the memory of Yannis Ritsos.
Makronisos
in memory of G. Ritsos
If I imagine you, I recognize you
chained tree foliage
skin and flesh ruffled by the wind
in the merciless spring of Makronissos,
your eyes red from the salt
wide open during the day, at meals
full of spitting and sichasia, two olives
to the fire or to a hopeless bottom
of cunning and treachery.
And then, digging deeper and deeper
looking backwards for the low pitch verse
humble redemption, another assurance
which protects within itself and saves
fenced off life:
four bottles sunk into the earth
stone time
and a fifth dimension, desire
Salvation.
Others will come to collect
your glass fruits,
to understand without knowing
the universal
clear intimacy of beauty.
Giuseppe Carracchia, Prova del nove, Giuliano Ladolfi Editore, 2015, Makronissos, Excerpt
Translation: Gina Karvounaki
About PEN Greece and PEN International:
PEN Greece is the official branch of PEN International in Greece. PEN International was founded in 1921 and is one of the largest international organizations in the field of promoting literature and protecting freedom of expression. Among its members are (or at times have been) great names in literature and intellectuals – from James Baldwin, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, John Steinbeck, Thomas Mann and Heinrich Bell, to Joseph Conrad, Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag and Don DeLillo. It operates in 100 countries with more than 140 national centers.
Life is a long and uneventful road.
Life without feasts, a long road without an inn.
DEMOCRITUS
