A poem marking the anniversary of the death of the great Greek poet Giorgos Seferis.
On this day, 20 September 1971, Giorgos Seferis, one of the greatest Greek poets, passed away. During the poet’s funeral, the human river that formed to honour him turned into one of the largest anti-dictatorship marches ever held.Giorgos Seferiadis, as was his real name, was born in Smyrna on 29 February 1900. He began writing his first lyrics in 1914, when, with the outbreak of the First World War, he emigrated to Athens with his family.He also lived in Paris and London, and subsequently, due to his diplomatic career, he was constantly changing his place of residence: Koritsa, Alexandria, South Africa, Ankara and Lebanon were among these places.One of the greatest moments in Greek literature is undoubtedly his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1963. The award was announced on 24 October, whilst the official ceremony took place on 10 December in Stockholm. ‘‘George Seferis laid the foundations for free verse,’ Odysseas Elytis would say of him. George Seferis had a close relationship with Nikos Karidis, founder of Ikaros. In 1945, *Deck Diary II* was published. This edition, in 313 numbered copies, marked the beginning of a collaboration that continued for fifty years. The poet’s poetic, essayistic and translational work has been published and reprinted without interruption throughout all these years. George Seferis’s way of thinking and expression remains highly relevant today and is remembered by readers young and old. George Seferis’s poem ‘Erotic Discourse C’: O dark shudder in the root and in the leaves!Stand tall and watchful amidst the crowd of silence; lift your head from your curved hands; let your will be born and tell me again&the words that touched and mingled with the blood like an embrace; let your longing lean, deep as a walnut’s shadow, and flood us with the profusion of your hair, from the down of the kiss upon the leaves of the heart. Your eyes lowered and you wore the smile that painters of yore humbly depicted. A forgotten passage in an old gospel, your words breathed life into the light voice: ‘The passing of time is silent and otherworldly; the pain gently glows within my soul; dawn caresses the sky, the dream remains absent; it is as if fragrant bushes were passing by. ”With the glint in my eyes, with the blush on my cheeks, they awaken and descend, doves of jade; their circling flutter entwines me low, a human touch upon my bosom, the stars. ”My hearing, as if a shell had shattered, the adversary’s wail resounds—distant and indissoluble, the world’s lament—yet these are moments and they fade, and the dual-edged logic of my longing reigns, alone. »As if I had been resurrected naked in a stolen memory, you came, familiar and a stranger, my dear, to grant me, an old woman, the boundless redemption I sought from the swift whispers of the wind...&The cracked sunbeam faded and vanished; it seemed a delusion to seek the gifts of heaven. Your eyes lowered. The moon’s thorn sprouted, and you feared the shadows of the mountain. ...In the mirror, our love, how it fades away; in sleep, dreams, the school of oblivion; in the depths of time, how the heart constricts and is lost in the rocking of a stranger’s embrace... You can read more about Giorgos Seferis’s books here: http://ikarosbooks.gr/authors/seferis