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Reading Greece
Reading Greece1 day ago
"The body is the victory and the defeat of dreams" by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke

The body is the Victory of dreams
when shameless as water
it rises from slumber
its pock marks, its scars
such signs still asleep
its dark olive groves
in love,
cool to the hand.

The body is the Defeat of dreams
spread out long and empty
(if you shout, you hear the echo)
with its anemic tiny hairs
unloved by time
wounded, sobbing
hating its own motion
its original black color
fades steadily
when it wakes it clasps its bag
hanging on to pain for hours
in the dust.

The body is the Victory of dreams
when it puts one foot in front of the other
and gains a certain ground.
A place.
With a heavy thump.
Death.
When the body gains a place
in a town square
after death
like a wolf with a burning snout
it howls, “I want it”
“I can’t stand it”
“I threaten—I revolt”
“My baby is hungry.”

The body gives birth to justice
and its defense.
The body creates the flower
spits out the death-pit
tumbles over, takes flight
spins motionless around the cesspool
(the world’s motion)
in dreams the body triumphs
of finds itself naked in the streets
in pain;
it loses its teeth
shivers from love
breaks its earth open
like a watermelon
and is done.

[Translated by Karen Van Dyck, “The Scattered Papers of Penelope”, Greywolf Press, 2009]

Drawn from the traditions of Greek myth, history, and art, “The Scattered Papers of Penelope: New and Selected Poems by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke” (Graywolf, 2009) is poet Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke's first full retrospective collection available in English. Translated from the Greek by an array of noted scholars, including the editor Karen Van Dyck, Anghelaki-Rooke's poetry is bold, sensual, and brash.

She re-examines Greek history and myth through the female body—the bodies of Penelope and Helen and the poet's own body, scarred by illness. Other poems and sequences take the form of a journal kept during the first Gulf War, prose poems about modern violence and dictatorship, and lyric descriptions of the domestic world on the poet's home island of Aegina. “The Scattered Papers of Penelope” introduces to American readers a major global poetic voice, a winner of the Greek National Prize for Poetry and the Greek Academy's Poetry Prize

Read more about Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke:
👇
🔶Reading Greece: Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke on Poetry as an Endless Source of Revival and the Creation of a New Poetic “Cosmogony”
https://www.greeknewsagenda.gr/reading-greece-katerina-anghelaki-rooke-on-poetry-as-an-endless-source-of-revival-and-the-creation-of-a-new-poetic-cosmogony/

🔷Reading Greece Pays Tribute to Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke
https://www.greeknewsagenda.gr/reading-greece-pays-tribute-to-katerina-anghelaki-rooke/

🖼️ Michalis Manoussakis, Suffering Body, Acrylic and charcoal on wood, 100 x 150 cm/ National Gallery Alexandros Soutsos Museum
Reading Greece
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Reading Greece
Reading Greece2 days ago
📌A conference titled “Designing Belonging: Libraries as Inclusive and Open Public Spaces” organized by the Organizing Committee for the Support of Libraries will take place on 1-2 December 2025, at the Εθνική Βιβλιοθήκη της Ελλάδος - National Library of Greece (Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center).

In an era characterized by an overabundance of digital media and a multilayered social structure, #libraries are called upon to redefine their role as open and inclusive spaces where people gather to participate in shared activities that encourage genuine human connection. Within this context, the upcoming conference will delve into issues focusing on community development and social inclusion, aiming to enable libraries—through co-design—to redefine their identity as community hubs of socialization and innovation.

The conference will also highlight innovative practices that establish libraries as hubs of alternative and lifelong learning, places where curiosity thrives beyond formal education. In addition, emphasis will be placed on the importance of universal design and accessibility, showcasing inclusion strategies that welcome diverse users, including persons with disabilities and marginalized communities. Ultimately, the conference presentations propose a vision of libraries not merely as repositories of information, but as open, evolving spaces for human connection, equity, and democratic participation.

Participants will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue with leading experts from Germany, Finland, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Greece, and to exchange ideas on the socially inclusive character of libraries.

💡For more info👉 https://www.nlg.gr/news/designing-belonging-libraries-as-inclusive-and-open-public-spaces/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOLjCpleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETB4OE16bXZzZ0JnRUJUaHpXc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHvenoY-44p8--mdACyUROTucF0YEuYJpyaOXi1DmD921LXFQniGM66nRAfn0_aem_vjsYo0ha4YnnMD43XyeN6Q
Reading Greece
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Reading Greece
Reading Greece3 days ago
📚📚MPT ‘The Antidote to Agony: Focus on the Poetry of Greece and Cyprus’, guest edited by Jessica Sequeira, features 30 selections of poems translated into English by contemporary poets expanding the linguistic boundaries of Modern Greek, Bulgarian and Arvanitika, reflecting on migrant crossings in the Mediterranean, female friendship, the transcription of orality, imagined plagues, the encounters of bodies, the AIDS pandemic, and artistic ruin, among other themes. Greek poetry, as perhaps all poetry, opens the heart to the beyond, to the liminal condition. The truth is that the idea of a national focus will forever be complicated given that migrants also form part of the tradition of a region, both those entering and those leaving (which is why a poem into Greek is also included, by a Cypriot poet residing in Ireland).

The authors translated in the Focus are Angelos Sikelianos, Anna Griva, Argyris Chionis, Argyris Stavropoulos, Christodoulos Makris, Danae Siozou, Dimitra Kotoula, Efstathia P., Eftychia Panayiotou, Eleni Kefala, Ersi Sotiropoulos, George Le Nonce, Iana Boukova, Iliassa Sequin, Ioannis Tsirkas, Jazra Khaleed, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Katerina Iliopoulou, Konstantinos Loukopoulos, Krystalli Glyniadakis, Myrsini Ghana, Niki Chalkiadaki, Nikolas Koutsodontis, Panayotis Ioannidis, Peter Constantine, Phoebe Giannisi, Stamatis Polenakis, Suleyman Alayali-Tsialik, Thanos Gogos, Vassilis Kimoulis. Two introductory essays by Brian Sneeden and Kostya Tsolakis provide context.

For more info 👉https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/the-antidote-to-agony-focus-on-the-poetry-of-greece-and-cyprus/
Reading Greece
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