BookFeed Ελληνικά 1884–1951
Sikelianos writes as if the old world were still warm underfoot, mixing the language of Orthodox feast days with a pagan sense of the sacred, so grief, spring light and the sea all arrive with the same steady breath. Start with «Συλλογή Αλαφροΐσκιωτος», where a young poet on Lefkada hears a voice on the mountain and commits himself to it. If that voice suits you, «Πάσχα των Ελλήνων» follows it up a mountainside at Easter. The other two listed here expand on the same concerns: «Μήτηρ Θεού» is an unbroken hymn to a mother larger than any church, and «Ποίηση» treats the Greek landscape as a state of the soul. The verse is in Greek, so expect a voice that builds by breath and rhythm rather than by narrative.
Feels like awe, nature and faith.
Start with Μήτηρ Θεού (1916-1917).
Sikelianos and his wife Eva Palmer staged the Delphic Festival in 1927, reviving ancient drama in the ruins above Delphi — the poet spent his life trying to make myth a lived, present thing.
A bird arrives home after a long journey and finds the nest still there.
Μικρούλα πνοή, που τη δροσιά θεϊκά το θρέφει, κοίταπώς κυβερνάει δεξά ζερβά του τάφου του τη σαΐτα!Και νά· μια μέρα, στου σπιτιού το μεσιανό πατάρι,γοργόν, απ’ το πρωτόβραδο λιγνότερο φεγγάρι,αχαμνισμένο απ’ το μακρύ ταξίδι, καθώς σώνειτην όψη ο κρύφιος έρωτας, το πρώτο χελιδόνιδιανεύει ως ίσκιος άπιαστος στο δώμα απάνου κάτου,με συχνοφτερουγιάσματα τριγύρα απ’ τη φωλιά του … Άγγελος Σικελιανός, 1916
A poet walks among the dead as if among family, and finds a language for grief that is closer to feasting than to mourning. One unbroken hymn, in the rhythms of folk song, to a mother larger than any church.
Άγγελος Σικελιανός, 1918
A poet walks up a mountain at Easter and finds the old gods still breathing in the light, the bread and the sea.
Άγγελος Σικελιανός, 1907
A young poet on Lefkada hears a voice on the mountain calling him to carry a promise into word and deed. Greek lyricism at full lung. Emblematic title: αλαφροΐσκιωτος = «ελαφρά σκιασμένος» — touched, shadow-lit. The text is scan-prone (verse, breathless voice). For Greek readers, a card by a poet who believed poetry could found a religion. It opens with a question about beauty and ends with a vision of Odysseus and Ajax. Some of the 40 samples are compelling, a few are very weak and uneditable. Tags: purely the book as a whole and Greek/English variants allowed but only if they truly reflect the content. Any modern English renderings have to be clearly translations, because the book is in Greek; but the actual feed will show the Greek passage. A good mix of cards should feel like this collection: the opening ecstatic question, a sea-bath, a thirst, the olive grove, the people, the descent into a folk mourning, a wedding dance, the spring charm, the mountain ascent, the 'other gods' closing line. I'll return all cards with Greek field text and english objects.
Άγγελος Σικελιανός, 1946
Ancient rites, sunburnt fields and a Greece that feels older than myth — poetry that makes the landscape a state of the soul.
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