The last poems of this 20th-century Greek master are tinged with sadness and loss, but they also, in their candidly poetic reporting of the life and world around him, hum with vitality and an odd note of hope. Ritsos felt defeated in his own health and politics, but as a poet he experienced a surge of creativity that is fascinating to follow in its chronology and exactitude.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION • I. THE NEGATIVES OF SILENCE • Misguided Pursuits • Back Then • Bitter Knowledge • Forgetfulness • Intimations • The Uninvited • Closing Words • Perhaps • The Crazy • Incident • Minimal Harvest • Hypothermia • Escape • Tokens • Denouement • Pointless Lucidity • Conversions • Harsh News • Pilgrimage • Homeland • Hour of Anonymity • Post Script • Not Quite • Another Summer • People and Suitcases • The Latest Word • A Pillar • What Cannot Be Weighted • Topography • Strange Dream • Two in the Afternoon • II. THE BARE TREE • Useless Keys • On Silence • The Other Fear • Depletion • The Statues and Us • From Another Time • Garden in Autumn • Sluggishness • Sparse Leavings • Work Table • Self-Knowledge • Sitting Out the Rain • Painting Stones • III. LATE INTO THE NIGHT • Inertia • Same as Ever • Nothing • The Sound of the Bell • Trifles • Good Luck • Balance • Last Minute Diversions • The Nails • Evacuation • Naught • The Everlastings • The Trial • Until One Night • The Original Position • Stages of Weariness • In the Garden • Innocence • Changes • Tonight • Traffic • Privileged • Wrong Number • A Flowershop • And the Poem • Turned Soil • The Black Boat • IV. TICKS OF THE CLOCK • V. BOAT WHISTLES • The Last Summer