Photo by (c) Julia Hürner
Dear Versopolis Friends,

this time we want to introduce you to another format initiated by Versopolis in order to promote European poetry and literature.

Authors of the Week is a special feature created in collaboration with the Versopolis' editorial team and partner festivals within the Versopolis' network. The column features a series of essays, comissioned by Versopolis and written by a diverse range of established and up-and-coming authors from the partnering countries.

Authors of the Week offers readers a deep insight into the latest trends and developments in the local and national poetry scenes and supports Versopolis' aim to promote the diversity of European poetry, in its variety of poetic expressions and unique, individual voices that build a dialogue and a bridge between different cultures and languages.

Read along and find out more about this week's Author of the Week country, Greece.

Sending you our best,
your VERSOPOLIS teamAUTHORS OF THE WEEKby Versopolis

Marija Dejanović & Thanos Gogos
Authors of the Week: Greece

The place of new Greek poetry in world literature todayThe position of Greek literature in world literature reflects the position of Greece in the world. If we try to put ourselves in the shoes of an average reader from one of the countries whose literatures participate in the global circulation of translated works to a greater extent than Greek literature, we imagine a perspective like this: we all know that something is there, in the south, sometimes we even hear some news from over there, especially when that news somehow relates to us. The news sometimes even grows into short-term trends, if it contains a promise or a threat of spilling over to the rest of the world. This is, of course, a cynical approach, but three events solidified this impression in us – Odysseas Elitis’ and Giorgos Seferis’ Nobel prizes and their aftermath, and the third, which is the main topic of this article, was the 2010s Greek economic crisis.Greek Poetry – is it all just in our heads?To Greek poets and readers, Elitis and Seferis are relevant because their works thematized topics relevant to us, and did it in a very profound way. Their works are, still, embedded in their contexts – complex poetic systems that had their predecessors, successors, time and place. Abroad, we can’t help but feel that these two poets are relevant because, unlike many equally good Greek poets of their generation, they won a big international prize. It is great indeed to have two Greek Nobelists, yet the question arises – ‘so what?’ Did these events spark long-term interest and improve understanding of Greek literature? Did they help reconnect Greek culture with the centres of European cultural production, making it an equal participant, rather than an exotic yet familiar, trendy addition to the main offer of the European canon? We don’t think so.

>> Read the entire essay

Nikos Erinakis
Authors of the Week: Greece

The sacred is hidden in the new: The Need for the Conjunction of Poetry and Philosophy TodayFriedrich Schelling writes in Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, in a rather poetic tone: ‘The world of ideas presses strongly towards the light, but is still held back by the fact that nature has mysteriously withdrawn. The harbours of ideas cannot have great secrets as their aims, except the admission of the mystery of Nature.’ Balancing between the materiality of existence and the somewhat more fascinating world of ideas, I will attempt to levitate between the idea of ​​genesis and the birth of ideas per se, but more specifically I will take a look at the possibility of the genesis of an innovative language, a language that could render poetry useful again. Such a language in its most archetypal form, nuggets of which have been revealed to us from Heraclitus to Hölderlin and Rimbaud (with Heidegger as our guide in identifying them), has yet to appear. Please forgive my perhaps normative rather than descriptive style – poetry once again trumps the science in me.

>> Read the entire essayMOVED BY VERSOPOLIStraveling authors
As a European poetry platform, Versopolis creates new opportunities
for emerging European poets and poetesses. This creation is financially and organisationally concrete.

Versopolis also supports poets’ and poetesses’ mobility by
organising a number of guest appearances at different European
literary festivals. This creates countless opportunities for networking
with foreign publishers, literary agents, the press and other actors in
the field of literature. Needless to say, this helps these brilliant artists
to make a breakthrough in the European and global poetry scene. To
you, their readers

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