Responses to American Poetry
The aim of this online space is to host the research work of university students or young scholars as this emerges from larger projects focusing on the American poetry scene. The objective of this initiative is to bring this kind of research activity to the attention of the general public in an attempt to further promote the exchange of ideas with regard to the process of reading, understanding and appreciating poetry writing.
Tatiani Rapatzikou
(Professor, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece; Advisor and initiative co-ordinator trapatz@enl.auth.gr)
POLYXENI RISTANI
"Oleander" ή "Πικροδάφνη"
Laurel rises from my palm,
and digs its thorns in the clouds.
It detests the ether so much,
as much as my skin longs for yours.
Loved flesh, now wrinkled, loved flesh,
Can you run like you used to?
How did the wreath pierce my forehead?
Since when were the dishonored ever rewarded?
Wrinkled flesh, why didn't you listen?
Disobedience brings distortion
Disobedience brings interest
and my ruined, wrinkled skin thinks it's loved, again.
Now you see shrines reflected in my eyes
But behind my sockets, they carry ruins-
Pieces and creases of wrinkled flesh.
You wish for the truth, but you dress me as an oracle.
Lies are bodies, they're olives and flowers
Hope for them to never speak and paint your own,
If I speak, words will conquer the fields - unknown.
Don't let them wrinkle, don't crease that flesh.
If you're unlucky, you will feel the wrinkled fresh.
Skin the nymph and kill the past,
Kill the skin and call for drought.
When my flesh remembers, it's always so bitter.
(video: https://youtube.com/shorts/Q-X
Critical Note for “Oleander ή Πικροδάφνη”
I was very surprised when I got the opportunity to participate in this Poiesis project. It happened quite out of the blue, largely sparked by my professor’s interest in my love for writing – something I will forever be grateful for. I was already very familiar with C.P Cavafy’s work, since we studied many of them in high school as part of the literature class. Upon hearing that I needed to merge him with the sharpness of Gertrude Stein, I felt lost. It took a while to realize that by uniting the two poets I could succeed in highlighting their differences, and not their shared characteristics ‒ which happen to be many more after some in-depth insight into them than what is usually expected.
“Oleander ή Πικροδάφνη” was born from this marriage of these two poets. Utilizing Stein’s writing style and repetitions while combining them with Cavafy’s prose and consultations according to the poems listed in Elisavet Arseniou’s 2016 work, I wrote my contribution for this project quite quickly. I also owe it to Cavafy for the imagery ‒ especially in his early work, which I had in mind when writing this ‒ abandoned shrines, Hellenic mythological elements (e.g. nymphs, oracles) and figments of Greece’s natural beauty captured in both the lens of my camera and my eye’s attention. In the video I took to accompany my words, I was compelled to honor Stein’s love for modern art by including a couple of art works I saw during my visit to a temporary exhibition hosted in EMST titled “What if Women Ruled the World.” Specifically selected works by Leda Constantara, Chrysa Romanou and Danai Anesiadou, given how Stein acted as a pioneer for the post-modern, which now serves as the foundation for these works; this is what drew me closer to them and their artistic explorations.
Other than this being my very first contribution to a multinational project, this was also a very experimental poem for me to create. Stein’s Lifting Belly played a major role in influencing my flow and my poem’s focus on the human body. On first glance, it’s pretty transparent about mourning the loss of prosperity found in a young body or a young nation. This is Cavafy’s charter ‒ the speaker could be an elderly person, yearning for human touch or respect for their cultural heritage, which now rots in everyone’s distant memory. Therefore, as seen in the last stanza, the speaker invites the reader to “kill” the aforesaid memory, seeing how bitter and sorrowful this lost beauty makes the speaker feel. These melancholic sentiments are only highlighted when compared to the shots of new and old art found in urban Thessaloniki, such as graffiti on campus grounds and byzantine memorials in the city centre. It’s also an ode to the undying natural reserves (the ocean, greenery in modern university campuses), which reflects my feelings for human bodies as well as older civilizations: There is no such thing as death of beauty, of the ability to mesmerize someone solely by existing, an ability I believe is retrieved in everyone. Then again, that’s why I decided to make this a work of video poetry ‒ an art so old being presented with the help of today’s mediums, such as a shaky phone camera.
A final note I wish to include is the title: it’s the name of the flower Oleander in both English and Greek. Translated fully into English, the poem’s title would be “Oleander or Oleander.” I’ve chosen this firstly because of the plant’s erotic symbolism, as well as its connotations with themes of beauty and resilience. The second reason for this title is due to a translation anecdote; laurel is the first word in the poem, whereas bitter is the last one. Isolated, these two translate to δάφνη” (dafni) and “πικρό” (pikro) in Greek respectively. Uniting them backwards, we end up with the term for oleander “πικροδάφνη” (pikrodafni). I found this similar to how backtranslation works, as well as the marriage of the two early twentieth century poets. Coincidentally, in Greek tradition, the plant has the exact same symbolisms as well as passion, faith and betrayal. All of these themes I consider them to be helpful when interpreting this particular poem. Nevertheless, this was a great learning experience for me both as a student and a writer. I can only hope that this work reaches an appreciative audience.
WORKS CITED
Anesiadou, Danae. Untitled exhibit from D Possessions, EMST, Athens. https://www.emst.gr/ download/danai-anesiadoy-d-possessions. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024
Arseniou, Elisavet. Κ.Π. Καβάφης: Η αξία της ποίησης [C.P. Cavafy: The Value of Poetry]. Metaixmio, 2016.
Papakonstantinou, Leda. Time in my Hands: Retrospective [Exhibition], EMST, Athens. https://www.emst.gr/en/exhibitions-en/leda-papaconstantinou-retrospective. Accessed 1 Apr.2024
Rehling, Nicola. “Taking Patriarchy out of Poetry: Eroticism and Subversion in Gertrude Stein's Lifting Belly.” Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, vol. 4, 1996, pp. 77-84, https://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/ gramma/article/view/7396/7148. Accessed 31 Mar. 2024
Romanou, Chrysa. Untitled exhibits from The Search for Happiness for As Many as Possible, EMST, Athens, 2024, https://www.emst.gr/en/exhibitions-en/chryssa-romanos. Accessed 1 Apr.2024.
Stein, Gertrude. Lifting Belly. Naiad Press, 1989.
Polyxeni Ristani is a third-year student at the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Her primary academic interests lie in examining cultural exchanges as they are reflected in different texts and modern forms of literary and artistic expression. In the future, she hopes to further explore the academic field of contemporary literary translation.
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