European Poetry

Poems (1945-1971)

Name: Poems (1945-1971)
Author: Miltos Sachtouris
ISBN: 9780976395065

by Miltos Sachtouris, Karen Emmerich

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Overview

Poems (1945-1971) contains selections from the first seven volumes of Miltos Sachtouris’ work. The collection traces the poetic development of a writer deeply affected by the turmoil of his times, from his emergence on the Greek literary world as a young man of 25, with a series of poems written during the Axis occupation of Greece, to a volume published thirty years later during the military junta of 1967–74. This bilingual edition of Poems (1945-1971) is almost a historical document, chronicling one poet’s response to three decades of intense social and political upheaval in a nation experiencing the successive horrors of occupation, civil war, and military dictatorship.

Synopsis

Poems (1945–1971), first published in 1978 and now in its eighth edition in Greece, contains work from the nine volumes Miltos Sachtouris wrote during the most productive period of his poetic career. The first of these volumes was written during the Axis occupation of Greece, and the last was published thirty years later during the military junta of 1967–74. Part poetic auto- biography, part historical document, this collection thus chronicles one writer’s reaction to three decades of intense social and political upheaval in a nation experiencing the successive horrors of occupation, civil war, and military dictatorship. Evocative and deeply moving, Sachtouris’s poetry builds up, block by linguistic block, an unforgettable vision that speaks even to those who inhabit worlds different and distant from his own.

About the Author, Miltos Sachtouris

Miltos Sachtouris (1919- 2005) was born in Athens. Sachtouris studied law, but abandoned legal practice early in order to devote himself to writing. Sachtouris received the Second National Poetry Award in 1962 for "Ta Stigmata" the First National Poetry Award in 1987, the Order of the Phoenix in 1995, and the Grand State Literature Prize in 2003 for his collected works. Karen Emmerich has translated work by Vassilis Vassilikos, Yiorgos Skabardonis, Rhea Galanake, and many Greek poets of the twentieth century. She has received translation grants and awards from PEN and from the Modern Greek Studies Association.