Unearthing gold in secondhand poetry books
During the last couple of days I've bought several secondhand poetry books from a Christian Aid Book Sale and an Oxfam bookshop in Edinburgh.
I do read poetry on line and I purchase new poetry collections in book form and online but I get just as excited about reading new poems by finding familiar and unfamiliar authors in unexpected places.
One of my new/old books is Ten Women Poets of Greece' edited by Dino Siotis with an introduction by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, published by Wire Press, San Francisco 1982.
Anghelaki-Rooke says in her introduction,'In Greece the traces of the relationship between survival and poetry are still somehow fresh and recognisable.This is especially true of Greek women poets. There is a well known paradox in poetry: the poem is both the instrument and the end result of self-knowledge. Without having plunged into yourself you cannot come up with a poem....The Greek woman poet has always desperately tried to combine her creativity with the ideal of the ''real women'' as established by men.' Could have been written today!
The First Rains of Autumn
Under the crimson waters the moon
Plucks the down of the dead.
by Demetra Christodoulou
These poems are wonderful but if you don't fancy 1980s translated Greek poetry go out and explore secondhand bookshops, charity shops or book sales and see what you find!
I do read poetry on line and I purchase new poetry collections in book form and online but I get just as excited about reading new poems by finding familiar and unfamiliar authors in unexpected places.
One of my new/old books is Ten Women Poets of Greece' edited by Dino Siotis with an introduction by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, published by Wire Press, San Francisco 1982.
Anghelaki-Rooke says in her introduction,'In Greece the traces of the relationship between survival and poetry are still somehow fresh and recognisable.This is especially true of Greek women poets. There is a well known paradox in poetry: the poem is both the instrument and the end result of self-knowledge. Without having plunged into yourself you cannot come up with a poem....The Greek woman poet has always desperately tried to combine her creativity with the ideal of the ''real women'' as established by men.' Could have been written today!
The First Rains of Autumn
Under the crimson waters the moon
Plucks the down of the dead.
by Demetra Christodoulou
These poems are wonderful but if you don't fancy 1980s translated Greek poetry go out and explore secondhand bookshops, charity shops or book sales and see what you find!
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