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Poetry Month 2016: Constantine Cavafy
The First Step The young poet Evmenis complained one day to Theocritos: “I have been writing for two years now and I have composed just one idyll. It’s my only completed work. I see, sadly, that the ladder of Poetry is tall, extremely tall; and from this first step I now stand on I will never climb any higher.” Theocritos replied: “Words like that are improper, blasphemous. Just to be on the first step should make you happy and proud. To have come this far is no small achievement: what you have done is a glorious thing.Read More
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Out and Back to Ithaka
Startling and yet imaginatively right to see images of the Southwest here. Are those Anasazi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde or Canyon de Chelly? Powerful images in any case. And the resonant voice of Sean Connery leading us from one to another, borne along by the current of Vangelis’s music. Lovely! The translation is uncredited on YouTube but is by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. It’s available in The Essential Cavafy and at various locations online, including the amazing C. P. Cavafy site.Read More