Kiki Dimoula: ‘The first Nobel Prize is deserved by xrovos’

Leading Greek poet and academic Kiki Dimoula, shortly before the release of her new collection of poetry entitled *Anotelia*, spoke with journalist Manolis Pimblis.  Read below the very interesting interview published on Saturday 22 October in the newspaper Ta Nea, in the ‘Vibliodromio’ supplement: Let’s start with the title: ‘Ano Telia’. Why did you choose it? I didn’t choose it; it was imposed on me. Perhaps he was encouraged by the fact that in the poem entitled ‘The Polytonic’ I praise the importance of accents and punctuation. If you now ask me why a semicolon and not a full stop, I would say that I avoided it because it would have been like filing a registry document. Melodrama, in other words. Most likely, however, I was drawn to the word: Up. It drew me upwards, as if to pull me away from the predator: ‘Down’. In the poem ‘On the Train’, you speak tenderly of disused stations and of the ‘irreverent speed’ with which the countryside is traversed. At the same time, you state that you are returning, without saying clearly where. Does the modern person even have the choice not to board the high-speed train? And where, after all, is this train going? It matters where this train comes from and where it is going. My intention, however, was to emphasise that the past is constantly on the move, through its own abolition, with the present and the future as its only daring passengers. I single out your phrases and words: ‘the sickness of sorrow’, ‘melancholy’, ‘times of weeping’. At the same time, you say that we cling to life out of fear. Is the fear of death stronger than any sorrow? And yet, is it not stronger than any joy? So is this the explanation for sacrifice? In my opinion, or rather according to my own fearful psychology, the main cause of all sorrow and of the – most often – unwarranted melancholy is the innate fear of death. It is so pervasive that I suspect creation and creativity are motivated by the avoidance or postponement of death. I would add that, at least for me, I have never known any great joy that did not tremble at the very thought of its own death from the very outset. Indeed, I suspect that these very beautiful and enthusiastic feelings are aware of the limits of their own existence; perhaps that is why they are so spasmodic and unstable. And if that is true, then it is a great act of bravery on their part that they agree to be born and willingly sacrifice themselves in order to toughen up our pampered psyche. You say somewhere: ‘Memory again, oblivion again. I use the same words over and over’. And in your very fine poem ‘The Genuine’, about unhealed wounds, you say ‘superficially you forget’. Is there a way to overcome traumatic memory? I think there is only one way, and it is utterly humiliating. Dementia. But then again, how do I know if dementia isn’t simply a secretive memory, and that the only thing it trusts to safeguard its experiences is oblivion? In the field of history, there has been much talk of memory in recent years. In other words, we are often more interested in what we remember happened than in what actually happened. Do we construct our own traumas? To remember mostly means forcing something that no longer happens to pretend it is happening, with the aid, of course, of nostalgia, which is the most painful of pleasures. But we want it. It is the raw material with which we unwittingly create new wounds, as if our torment were drawing from them antibodies to protect its endurance.You speak subversively of experience, declaring that one must not trust it, but also of omniscience, which will always be humiliated by the Unknown and must ‘tear its reputation to shreds’. What place do knowledge and youthful vigour hold for you in life?I try to be the peacemaker in the unceasing war between knowledge and youthful vigour. But I don’t succeed. And I always find myself in the camp of youthful vigour, as a volunteer to soothe its wounds.You describe the beautiful side of life in two words: dreams and love (in that order). Do you perhaps mean that love is a subcategory of dreams? And that the only reality, therefore, is the one we do not live? Not exactly. Rather, dreams are a subcategory of love. And yes, the only enchanting, generous, desirable reality is the one we do not live. And from the way you put it, I gather that you are, among other things, a poet.Greece, a crossroads, as they say, between East and West, chose politically, with strong logical arguments, the famous ‘we belong to the West’. Do you believe its soul is there too? I simply suspect it comes and goes.What feelings does today’s Europe evoke in you? A sense of security, trust, or, conversely, anxiety and fear? A threat and, at the same time, a reassuring dream. One of the issues causing its foundations to creak is the refugee crisis. How do you process within yourself this reality of the Aegean, filled with refugees, which Greece has recently experienced and is still experiencing? The issue is so tragic that, alas, if grand words and feelings of compassion were to be uttered, it would be a disaster. I am unable to justify such persecution that transcends the human, however much Greece has found itself in a similarly painful situation in the past. In other centuries, poetry held the primacy of expression – and theatre, of course. Today, it seems to be prose. How do you interpret this, and how do you feel about your place in the world of literature?Perhaps prose gives language more scope to expand than poetry, where writing is confined to certain rules, however much they have become more flexible for the sake of modern times, facilitating or misleading the result. As for me ― I answer honestly ― I am so insecure that I do not envisage any ‘position’ in the literary world, however much I might desire it as the mortal being that I am.The generation of the 1930s, which produced two Nobel laureates, has taken on mythical proportions in the collective subconscious; do you think its mythology will stand the test of time?I do not know if time will have the superiority to preserve the Nobel’s rightful prestige, which time itself should have been the first to receive for its unceasing creativity in working miracles.And while we’re on the subject of the Nobel Prizes: what did you make of this year’s award to Bob Dylan? It took me by surprise. But I don’t wish to comment on it further. Do you feel you have drawn on certain poetic sources more than others? Is there a line of poetic excellence and substance from the past that you believe can be traced in your poetry? Which older poets do you feel a kinship with? To have the audacity to feel a kinship with certain poets, I would need to know whether they, too, recognise me as their sister. But are values really so closely related? Do similarities benefit art? As for influences, yes, they inevitably exist, but they act and exert their influence when individual temperaments grow dark and feel alone and helpless.