George Seferis was born Giorgos Seferiadis on March 13, 1900, in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey). He is regarded as one of Greece's most celebrated poets and a Nobel Prize laureate. His work is characterized by its deep connection to Greek history and mythology, its modernist aesthetic, and its exploration of themes such as exile, memory,…
Garcia Marquez’s Bolivar transcends the merely legendary. His account exploits language, that repository of the mythopoetic, to give Bolivar mythical status.
Africa was just across the sea, perhaps a few miles due south. We were in a small village, Alfaix, in Almeria. Sadly, there wasn’t any glimpse of Africa. There were no lights shimmering on the ocean surface, speaking to my inner Africa. Nonetheless, North Africans lived here, in Andalusia, for 700 years, before retreating to Fez and Marrakesh.
In Marguerite Yourcenar’s (1903-1987) Oriental Tales, there is a story “Aphrodissia, The Widow” which deals with the problem of secret grief, that is secret because the source, the relationship with the lost object is a secret but also forbidden.
At this time of the year, usually, I would join J in Hebden Bridge. The walk from the station would take me up the hill towards Hardcastle Craggs winding upwards, skirting past the bowl of Hebden Bridge and then snaking towards Peckett Well, before turning to the slip road aiming for Midgehole. In late April…
The winter solstice has been and gone. Nightfall starts practically mid-afternoon and it is still night well into what would normally count as morning. Even after all these years, my body, my immigrant’s body, that is, still finds this shortening of the day and the reciprocal lengthening of the night disconcerting, if not just short…
Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) described Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) in 1945 as immensely dignified, with unhurried gestures, a noble head, beautiful, somewhat severe features and an expression of immense sadness. I never met her except in her poetry. When I first read her poems, I found that they were charged as like with intensely powerful…
I don’t know whether you know about Nkisi nkodi. It is a Kongo nailed figure, a container or statue of forces directed at an end. It is one of the most potent figures of African art. The nails are hammered into the wood whilst ritual curses are spoken. Each object may have dozens of these…
Continue reading ➞ Icelandic Sagas- ways of living and dying
Source: Neruda at St Brides
That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom; and that boredom is a direct proof that existence…
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