On this day, March 29, 2005, one of the greatest poets that our country produced.
"Nothing touches the poet, not even time. Because he has within him the childish, the old and the demonic at the same time" said Miltos Shaktouris describing poetry.
"Miltos Sakhtouris is not of this world or the other. He is a visitor. Only his mother knows that it was not a birth but a visit," George Kakoulidis wrote in Rizospastis on 11/1/2004.
The poet was born in 1919 in Athens and was originally from Hydra, being the great-grandson of the admiral of 1821, Giorgis Shaktouri.
In 1937 he began studying law at the Athens School of Law, but left it in 1940 to devote himself to literature. He participated in the National Resistance with EAM, while his first literary appearance was in 1944, with the publication of his poems in the magazine "Elefthera Grammata". It was preceded by the meeting with Nikos Eggonopoulos, who defined its creation. Although influenced by surrealism, he developed a distinctly personal voice. He was a close friend of Engonopoulos and also of Elytis. After the urging of Elytis, it appeared in 1944 in the magazine Ta Nea Grammata.
In 1945, his first poetry collection "The Forgotten" was published. The second collection titled "Paralogais" was published in 1948 and was followed by:"With my face on the wall" (1952), "When I talk to you" (1956), "The specters or joy on the other road" (1958), "The walk" (1960), "Ta stigmata" (1962), "Seal or the Eighth Moon" (1964), "The vessel" (1971), a consolidated edition of his collections up to 1971, "Poems 1945-1971" ( 1977), "Color Traumas" (1980), "Ectoplasms" (1986), "Since then" (1996), "Voice from the other shore" (1997), "The clocks turned upside down" (1998).
In 1956 he won the first prize in an international competition of young poets organized by the Italian Radio (RAI), in 1962 he won the 2nd State Prize for Poetry in Greece, in 1987 he won the 1st State Prize for "Ektoplasma". In 2003 he received the grand literary prize for his entire body of work, while he translated Brecht and Kafka, among others. His scholars recorded that through his work he captured the echo of the anxiety of an entire era, of a country that was struggling to redefine itself and exorcise its nightmares.
As the writer Elpidophoros Indzebelis notes, in Shaktouri's poetry the dominant elements are allegories, myths and enigmatic symbols, while pessimism, the feeling of historical defeat and the harsh experiences of the Occupation and the Civil War make up the world of the poet.
His works have been translated into French, English, Italian, German, Polish and Bulgarian. His poems have been set to music by Manos Hadjidakis, Argyris Kounadis, Yiannis Spanos, Kyriakos Sfetsa and Nikos Xydakis. He died in Athens, in 2005, in the area of America Square in Kypseli, where he lived for decades at 14 Mithymnis Street, in a small two-bedroom apartment.
Below we list five of his poems that echo just a little of the timeless verbal greatness of Miltos Shaktouris.
The carnations
These bloody carnations
where they decorate my office
they remind me of the blood I used to draw
in my youth
when others were fighting
and others were partying
in the accursed country.
I lived nearby
memory of Giorgos Makris
I lived near the living people
and I loved living people
but my heart was closer
to the wild sick with wings
to the great unlimited madmen
and even to the wonderfully dead
My brothers
My brothers who were lost down here in the world
they are the stars that now light up one by one in the sky
and yes the eldest
with a spring black tie
where he got lost in god-awful caves
as he rolled around playing
on red winds
slipped
in the wild beast's bloody mouth
Then my other brother who was burned
He was selling yellow sparklers
He sold and lit yellow flares
- When we light - he said - fire
we will drive the ghosts out of the gardens
ghosts will stop polluting the gardens
- When we light - he said - yellow sparklers
one day the sky will light up blue
and then the third, the smallest
who said he was a bat
that's why he loved the moons
and the moons one night saved him
they stuck around and shut him down
They stuck around and suffocated him
the moons melted around him
My brothers who were lost down here in the world
they are the stars that now light up one by one in the sky
History
When the rusty door opened like a curtain
ran
like a rotten ship in a bad harbor
showed the girl's laughing face
within the aroma of fire and smoke
her voice
like a dark cinema hall
showed laughing
and ἐὼ
a shirt in the air in the mess
hung
he was getting ready to fly
the girl
a living flower
one flower lit
a beautiful monster
upside-down mouth
the eyes
the eyebrows
a beautiful monster
where it was hitting
like a magic clock
this magical evening
finally proceed
the night
the girl broke into the mirror
later
appeared again
enormous
my face
her face
distorted
wild blooded
like a cinema
The gifts
Today I wore one
hot red blood
today people love me
a woman smiled at me
a girl gave me a shell
a child gave me a hammer
Today I kneel on the pavement
nailing on the plates
the bare feet of passers-by
they are all in tears
but no one is scared
everyone stayed in the positions I reached
they are all in tears
but they look at the heavenly advertisements
and a beggar who sells buns
in the sky
Two people are whispering
what makes our heart skip a beat?
yes it pierces our heart
so he is a poet
You can read more poems by Miltos Shaktouris here.
Follow News247.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news