Aggelos Bertos was born in 1998 and grew up in Karpathos.
Your first poetry collection Karpathia was recently published by Thines. Tell us a few things about this venture of yours.
Let me start by thanking you for the opportunity to speak about my debut collection, Karpathia. The truth is, it was harder than I expected, yet easier than I believed. I know that, in theory, those two statements contradict each other. But the journey toward publication went through at least four different publishers before finally finding its happy home with Thines Editions.
My first attempt was at the Thraka Awards in 2024, where the collection was shortlisted. Following that, I approached two other publishers, where I sensed a somewhat clientelistic relationship – not in terms of payment, but in terms of the production line. Every failure to gain a publisher’s trust in the poems of the collection – a trust which, if I had sensed it, would have inspired me to grant them the rights to Karpathia – saddened me, but did not discourage me. As trite as the metaphor may sound, each time it stumbled, a tooth of the collection broke, and I replaced it with resin. Making the collection even more worthy of trust; the very trust I wanted it to inspire in others. So, I hope that the seemingly contradictory statement I made above, now somehow makes sense.
What significance does the title Karpathia carry? How does Karpathos function not just as a setting but as a symbolic or emotional space in the collection? More generally, how is the notion of ‘topos’ imprinted in your work?
When I came to Athens for my studies, about two out of every four classmates, upon hearing I was from Karpathos, thought I meant the Carpathian Mountains. Rather amusing; it had never crossed my mind as a pun. So, let’s lay it out: Karpathian seas in poetry, Carpathian Mountains in geography. The literal connection is negligible; the literary one, abundant. I do not speak of my island as an island
I spent the first eighteen years of my life in Karpathos. I say that somewhat melodramatically, but for me, as for all its inhabitants, it was a kind of fortress. Both aggressive (just look at tourism, the “sacred legion” of the Greek economy) and haunted. I mean those tourist infrastructures that, in winter, remind us that we are really waiting for a Jonathan Harker to breathe life into them. A place, especially one in the remote islands, constructs its own set of values, which mutate, evolve, and, in the end, co-shape the national narrative. Karpathia, then, is the mythologization of the island; a place where, through its own history, the margins haunt the center, and where the poetic subject, as an inhabitant of the frontier, has both the right and the voice to engage with the questions of the present.
The collection includes explorations of sexual identity and desire. How do these intersect with place, tradition, and community in Karpathia? Are there moments of conflict, reconciliation, or transformation?
That’s a very nice question. It’s, above all, a dialectical relationship. The island exists, no matter what I do.
And I, as a queer man, exist through the island. There is conflict, and then comes synthesis. In truth, there is no real choice for anyone.
What about language? What role does language play in your writings?
I was afraid of that question. The truth is, I’ve been diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD, dysgraphia, and dyslexia-related reading difficulties. So, from the very beginning, language and I had a somewhat cold relationship – I was afraid of it, and language, on its part, could sense my devotion to imagery. Try making sense of that. I could even say that, at times, we had a relationship of hatred. I would have an idea, and then search for the language that could express it with the greatest possible precision.
But, as with all eternal enemies, their battles offer the finest spectacle. Beyond the immature metaphors, though, language is one of my three tools – along with rhythm and image. I’m trying to perfect them. Pressed by the futility of the answer I’m offering.
How much of the voice in Karpathia is self-reflective or self-critical? Do the poems imagine ideal selves, or are they more about reconciling with imperfection?
To be honest, I’m not sure. Right now, I think it’s a projection of the self onto the island – an act of recognition, and at the same time, a shared critique between us. Tomorrow it will be something else. And as for yesterday, honestly, I couldn’t care less.
How does Karpathia engage with larger social or political issues? In what ways does personal experience become political in your work?
Everything is political, and everything is in dialogue. The body receives stimuli and processes them through its emotions, arriving at a kind of knowing. What matters is the notion of sympathy — to reject the fetish of the ego. As for the collection, it plays on two fronts: that of the Athenians and that of the Karpathians. I hope that the city dwellers will be able to see us as something other than “country folk,” and that we, the provincials, will understand that the narrative of place is grounded in community, not in nationhood or in the feverish urge to cast off our provincial skin.
*Interview by Athina Rossoglou
TAGS: LITERATURE & BOOKS | READING GREECE
