The celebrated modern Greek poet Yannis Ritsos follows such
distinguished predecessors as C. P. Cavafy and George Seferis in a
dramatic and symbolic expression of a tragic sense of life. The shorter
poems gathered in this volume present what Ritsos calls "simple things"
that turn out not to be simple at all. Here we find a world of subtle
nuances, in which everyday events hide much that is threatening,
oppressive, and spiritually vacuous--but the poems also provide lyrical
and idyllic interludes, along with cunning re-creations of Greek
mythology and history. This collection of Ritsos's work--perhaps most of
all those poems written while he was in forced exile under the
dictatorship of the Colonels--testifies to his just place among the
major European poets of this century. The distinguished translator of
modern Greek poetry Edmund Keeley has chosen for this anthology
selections from seven of Ritsos's volumes of shorter poems written
between 1946 and 1975. Two of these volumes are represented here in
English versions for the first time, two others have been translated
only sporadically, and the remaining three were first published in a
bilingual edition now out of print (Ritsos in Parentheses). The
collection thus covers thirty years of a poetic career that is the most
prolific, and among the most honored, in Greece's modern history.