Surname: VARVERISFirst Name: YANNIS
Categories : Poetry / Essay&Criticism
Date of Birth: 1955
Place of Birth: Athens
Education: He studied law
Awards: In 1996, he was awarded the State Prize of critique and essay.
Works:
He has published nine poetry collections:
In Imagination and Word (1975)
The Beak (1978)
Disabled Veterans (1982)
Death Spread It Around (1986)
Piano of the Deep (1991)
Mister Fog (1993)
Miracle Null and Void (1996)
Poems 1975-1996 (2000)
Abroad (2001)
His poetry has been translated into many foreign languages.
He has also translated and published: Aristophanes, Menander, Moliere, Whitman, Prevere, Mrauzek, Brassens, Karrington and others.
Since 1976 he has written theater critics for leading Athens newspapers and journals. His theater articles and other theatrical works on literature have been gathered into five volumes.
READ EXCERPTS FROM THE AUTHOR'S WORK:
CLOSED EYES
O the dire torment of the other body
intruding between us in the dark
and your closed eyes feigning pleasure
as they escape in search of it
and my closed eyes inventing
towing bodies
longed for on roads;
how wondrously compassionate for our bodies
were the strangers we desired.
I won’t say anything, fly away with it
don’t say anything, you’ll darken my illusion;
until we open our eyes
exhausted as we are
and they have disappeared
and you adore
this wounded quail of a penis
as my hand
my poems
my glasses.
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
THE NECKTIES OF THE DEAD
Granted, women bear children.
But men
should sport the neckties of the dead.
Grand-dad father uncle
they all lived through various fashions:
broad narrow silken ties.
When pain subsides
surely you’ll find one to suit you?
In this world we all live
in expectation of love
and only the departed have truly loved us.
Alas if we don’t keep in touch with them
if they cannot once
when they sorely miss us
tighten their ties
around our necks.
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
WE SHOULD RENDER VISITS TO LIVING POETS
We should render visits to living poets
especially if we happen to dwell in the same town
drop in on them from time to time
because as we spend our quiet lives
certain that they too are alive – perhaps forgotten –
we hear the sad news.
Good poets pass away one day
not because they die
of heart failure or cancer
but because on their eyelashes sprout
horrendous flowers.
At first they delve into medical books
than they consult the optician
ask botanists and gardeners
science offers vague cautious words
and gives up
passerby and neighbours cross themselves.
Gradually poets withdraw
to the seclusion of their homes
listening to old records
writing little
less and less
mediocre stuff.
Meantime in this closeness
the horrendous flowers begin to wilt
and wither
and poets no longer go out
not even to the nearby kiosk for cigarettes.
They shrivel next to the fireplace
seeking answers from the fire
which ultimately lets sparks flying
first landing on the dry petals
then on the dry stems
all over the body
till the entire house
the entire place
brightens for a single moment
and they are reduced to ashes.
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
I AM SEEING TO MY FUTURE
I see you now growing old
and you are the last of them all
with those time-honoured face powders
Tuesday’s game of cards
necklace and earrings of the Fifties
and I think of the good old days
when kith and kin were still around
and together you planned my future
with unsuspecting certainty.
I see you, panic-stricken,
that, well, you’re still alive
that any time now
you’ll wilt
and I tell you so as though it was your fault
and you answer
don’t think dark thoughts, it’s inevitable
go out and enjoy a film
see to your future.
Well, why don’t you too go
go and leave me alone with my future
since my only future is
for everything around to become past.
YOUR BODY AND I
We are much travelled
your body and I
we have imagined
all that a body and I
can possibly imagine.
My body and I
have dreamt of
your body in poses
unthought of by you.
There’s no place for you here
what do you seek
between me
and your body?
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
PIANO OF THE DEEP
These notes
I’m sending you
with the upthrust
are no longer of any
but any musical interest.
Ever since the wreckage
which sent us both
to the bottom
like a weight aghast
the floodlit liner’s piano and I
have become something of a sunken ornament
a dull-sounding furnishing of the deep
an exotic flower
or an enormous shell
shelter of seahorses
fairway of fishes open-mouthed
before this black-and-white memory
of bow tie, keyboard an collar.
And if on one of your boatings
you detect on the calm surface
three, five, ten bubbles
like do, sol, mi
don’t imagine music
it’s only rust which on remembering
presses upwards.
So don’t you worry.
My piano and I
feel very comfy here
producing from time to time random notes
but always within the safety of total loss
and at long last
far from
the prospect of drowning.
SKETCH FOR SLEEP
Of late I’m sleepy.
I drip sleep on all I do.
I who know no one cleverer
in the whole Athens basin
want to sleep.
I understand that I’ve become sleepy
understanding. I’m not wrong
so rightly do I feel sleepy.
But I can’t sleep.
And so do nothing else
but drag my sleepiness
among various encounters
an understanding through fatigue
and a sweet abandon
akin to a demand
to be understood.
For years now thus sleepy
I’ll never understand if they ever understood
and if I was sleepy or not sleepy
once overcome by sleep.
Awards: In 1996, he was awarded the State Prize of critique and essay.
Works:
He has published nine poetry collections:
In Imagination and Word (1975)
The Beak (1978)
Disabled Veterans (1982)
Death Spread It Around (1986)
Piano of the Deep (1991)
Mister Fog (1993)
Miracle Null and Void (1996)
Poems 1975-1996 (2000)
Abroad (2001)
His poetry has been translated into many foreign languages.
He has also translated and published: Aristophanes, Menander, Moliere, Whitman, Prevere, Mrauzek, Brassens, Karrington and others.
Since 1976 he has written theater critics for leading Athens newspapers and journals. His theater articles and other theatrical works on literature have been gathered into five volumes.
READ EXCERPTS FROM THE AUTHOR'S WORK:
CLOSED EYES
O the dire torment of the other body
intruding between us in the dark
and your closed eyes feigning pleasure
as they escape in search of it
and my closed eyes inventing
towing bodies
longed for on roads;
how wondrously compassionate for our bodies
were the strangers we desired.
I won’t say anything, fly away with it
don’t say anything, you’ll darken my illusion;
until we open our eyes
exhausted as we are
and they have disappeared
and you adore
this wounded quail of a penis
as my hand
my poems
my glasses.
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
THE NECKTIES OF THE DEAD
Granted, women bear children.
But men
should sport the neckties of the dead.
Grand-dad father uncle
they all lived through various fashions:
broad narrow silken ties.
When pain subsides
surely you’ll find one to suit you?
In this world we all live
in expectation of love
and only the departed have truly loved us.
Alas if we don’t keep in touch with them
if they cannot once
when they sorely miss us
tighten their ties
around our necks.
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
WE SHOULD RENDER VISITS TO LIVING POETS
We should render visits to living poets
especially if we happen to dwell in the same town
drop in on them from time to time
because as we spend our quiet lives
certain that they too are alive – perhaps forgotten –
we hear the sad news.
Good poets pass away one day
not because they die
of heart failure or cancer
but because on their eyelashes sprout
horrendous flowers.
At first they delve into medical books
than they consult the optician
ask botanists and gardeners
science offers vague cautious words
and gives up
passerby and neighbours cross themselves.
Gradually poets withdraw
to the seclusion of their homes
listening to old records
writing little
less and less
mediocre stuff.
Meantime in this closeness
the horrendous flowers begin to wilt
and wither
and poets no longer go out
not even to the nearby kiosk for cigarettes.
They shrivel next to the fireplace
seeking answers from the fire
which ultimately lets sparks flying
first landing on the dry petals
then on the dry stems
all over the body
till the entire house
the entire place
brightens for a single moment
and they are reduced to ashes.
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
I AM SEEING TO MY FUTURE
I see you now growing old
and you are the last of them all
with those time-honoured face powders
Tuesday’s game of cards
necklace and earrings of the Fifties
and I think of the good old days
when kith and kin were still around
and together you planned my future
with unsuspecting certainty.
I see you, panic-stricken,
that, well, you’re still alive
that any time now
you’ll wilt
and I tell you so as though it was your fault
and you answer
don’t think dark thoughts, it’s inevitable
go out and enjoy a film
see to your future.
Well, why don’t you too go
go and leave me alone with my future
since my only future is
for everything around to become past.
YOUR BODY AND I
We are much travelled
your body and I
we have imagined
all that a body and I
can possibly imagine.
My body and I
have dreamt of
your body in poses
unthought of by you.
There’s no place for you here
what do you seek
between me
and your body?
(Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas)
PIANO OF THE DEEP
These notes
I’m sending you
with the upthrust
are no longer of any
but any musical interest.
Ever since the wreckage
which sent us both
to the bottom
like a weight aghast
the floodlit liner’s piano and I
have become something of a sunken ornament
a dull-sounding furnishing of the deep
an exotic flower
or an enormous shell
shelter of seahorses
fairway of fishes open-mouthed
before this black-and-white memory
of bow tie, keyboard an collar.
And if on one of your boatings
you detect on the calm surface
three, five, ten bubbles
like do, sol, mi
don’t imagine music
it’s only rust which on remembering
presses upwards.
So don’t you worry.
My piano and I
feel very comfy here
producing from time to time random notes
but always within the safety of total loss
and at long last
far from
the prospect of drowning.
SKETCH FOR SLEEP
Of late I’m sleepy.
I drip sleep on all I do.
I who know no one cleverer
in the whole Athens basin
want to sleep.
I understand that I’ve become sleepy
understanding. I’m not wrong
so rightly do I feel sleepy.
But I can’t sleep.
And so do nothing else
but drag my sleepiness
among various encounters
an understanding through fatigue
and a sweet abandon
akin to a demand
to be understood.
For years now thus sleepy
I’ll never understand if they ever understood
and if I was sleepy or not sleepy
once overcome by sleep.