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Exile and Return: Selected Poems 1967-1974
Free verse poems present observations on political conditions in Greece and explore themes including freedom, death, and love
- GenresPoetryGreeceContemporary
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
82 people want to read
About the author
Yiannis Ritsos
285 books299 followersYiannis Ritsos (Greek: Γιάννης Ρίτσος) is considered to be one of the five great Greek poets of the twentieth century, together with Konstantinos Kavafis, Kostas Kariotakis, Giorgos Seferis, and Odysseus Elytis. The French poet Louis Aragon once said that Ritsos was "the greatest poet of our age."
Yannis Ritsos was born in Monemvassia (Greece), on May 1st, 1909 as cadet of a noble family of landowners. Born to a well-to-do landowning family in Monemvasia, Ritsos suffered great losses as a child. The early deaths of his mother and his eldest brother from tuberculosis, the commitment of his father who suffered with mental disease and the economic ruin of losing his family marked Ritsos and affected his poetry. Ritsos, himself, was confined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis from 1927–1931.
These tragic events mark him and obsess his œuvre. In 1931, Ritsos joined the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During the Axis occupation of Greece (1941–1945) he became a member of the EAM (National Liberation Front), and authored several poems for the Greek Resistance. These include a booklet of poems dedicated to the resistance leader Ares Velouchiotis, written immediately upon the latter's death on 16 June 1945. Ritsos also supported the left in the subsequent Civil War (1946-1949); in 1948 he was arrested and spent four years in prison camps.
Yannis Ritsos was born in Monemvassia (Greece), on May 1st, 1909 as cadet of a noble family of landowners. Born to a well-to-do landowning family in Monemvasia, Ritsos suffered great losses as a child. The early deaths of his mother and his eldest brother from tuberculosis, the commitment of his father who suffered with mental disease and the economic ruin of losing his family marked Ritsos and affected his poetry. Ritsos, himself, was confined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis from 1927–1931.
These tragic events mark him and obsess his œuvre. In 1931, Ritsos joined the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During the Axis occupation of Greece (1941–1945) he became a member of the EAM (National Liberation Front), and authored several poems for the Greek Resistance. These include a booklet of poems dedicated to the resistance leader Ares Velouchiotis, written immediately upon the latter's death on 16 June 1945. Ritsos also supported the left in the subsequent Civil War (1946-1949); in 1948 he was arrested and spent four years in prison camps.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 3, 2017
I have read most of the modern Greek poets of the 20th century but oddly, never fully appreciated Ritsos until this book. These poems, written during the Military Junta of 1967-1974 are mesmerizing, haunting and dam fine poetry. One really feels the emptiness, the sense of loss and betrayal. I know Greece has had many years of hardships and once again, they are going through with more which seems to make this book resonate even more.
Like these lines from the poem "Greece":
...A seagull's down feather
fell on dry twigs. The old woman in the doorway
across the street said: "With small things like that, my son,
we manage to make life livable." He didn't answer. He was looking
into the distance.
He crossed himself and came forward as though to kiss
the old woman's hand or that down feather.
The imagery is simple but effective. One feels helpless reading this poems. As a poet he captures the essence of those dire days.
This translation by the master translator Edmund Keeley make the words sing.
Like these lines from the poem "Greece":
...A seagull's down feather
fell on dry twigs. The old woman in the doorway
across the street said: "With small things like that, my son,
we manage to make life livable." He didn't answer. He was looking
into the distance.
He crossed himself and came forward as though to kiss
the old woman's hand or that down feather.
The imagery is simple but effective. One feels helpless reading this poems. As a poet he captures the essence of those dire days.
This translation by the master translator Edmund Keeley make the words sing.
August 27, 2016
Yannis Ritsos, Exile and Return: Poems 1967-1974 (Ecco, 1985)
[originally posted 29Jan2001]
The cessation of Antaeus and the dissolution of Ecco Press was one of the great literary crimes of the twentieth century. Ecco was devoted to keeping the world's best poetry and fiction at the forefront of the American consciousness, and was one of the few non-University-affiliated presses who were able to do it for an extended period of time. W. W. Norton has taken over the Ecco catalog and attempted to keep the flame alive. Whether it has succeeded is for others to judge. [ed. note 2013: still around under the Norton aegis, so I'm thinking yes.]
Yannis Ritsos is a great example of the Ecco imperative. Not as well known in America as other Greek poets, and yet as prolific as any two of them, Ritsos became a part of Greece's national consciousness during the sixties and seventies. He managed to take the current events of the time (which affected him personally; he was arrested a number of times, held in camps, exiled temporarily, etc.) and mesh them almost seamlessly with traditional Greek myth in a series of "Repetitions," the title of many books released during that period. Despite, or perhaps because of, the overtly political nature of his work, Ritsos never gained the status internationally of contemporaries such as Nobel winner Odysseus Elytis or oft-quoted-by-Stephen-King George Seferis.
One of the beauties of translation is that much of the baggage that goes with it is lost with the nuances. Anyone not schooled in the events of modern Greek history is going to have a good deal of the political subtext go over his head, and this is never a bad thing; political poetry is often nothing more than polemic dressed up in line breaks. Ritsos has a five-thousand-year tradition of framework to operate in, and he takes full advantage of it, couching his political messages in ancient tales, never (at least, from the perspective of someone less familiar with modern than ancient Greek history) allowing the modern events to overwhelm the stories we're familiar with.
Edmund Keeley has won a number of awards for his translations of Ritsos, and rightly. Keeley has an ear for rhythm and structure that allows for excellent translation, and while his love of alliteration can lead to some slightly annoying lines (he adores quoting his own translation of "Penelope's Despair," in which the line "slowly studied the slaughtered suitors" is just painful to recite), he manages to keep it under control most of the time. Ritsos is the same way with the erotic in that his almost constant references to nudity and sex seem almost innocent most of the time (after all, this is Greece we're talking about, where it sometimes seems that every city block in every metropolitan area contains at least one unclothed statue), but every once in a while he just plain goes over the top. No matter; unlike many books of recent poetry, you'll find far more pearls than you will swine in this collection. ****
[originally posted 29Jan2001]
The cessation of Antaeus and the dissolution of Ecco Press was one of the great literary crimes of the twentieth century. Ecco was devoted to keeping the world's best poetry and fiction at the forefront of the American consciousness, and was one of the few non-University-affiliated presses who were able to do it for an extended period of time. W. W. Norton has taken over the Ecco catalog and attempted to keep the flame alive. Whether it has succeeded is for others to judge. [ed. note 2013: still around under the Norton aegis, so I'm thinking yes.]
Yannis Ritsos is a great example of the Ecco imperative. Not as well known in America as other Greek poets, and yet as prolific as any two of them, Ritsos became a part of Greece's national consciousness during the sixties and seventies. He managed to take the current events of the time (which affected him personally; he was arrested a number of times, held in camps, exiled temporarily, etc.) and mesh them almost seamlessly with traditional Greek myth in a series of "Repetitions," the title of many books released during that period. Despite, or perhaps because of, the overtly political nature of his work, Ritsos never gained the status internationally of contemporaries such as Nobel winner Odysseus Elytis or oft-quoted-by-Stephen-King George Seferis.
One of the beauties of translation is that much of the baggage that goes with it is lost with the nuances. Anyone not schooled in the events of modern Greek history is going to have a good deal of the political subtext go over his head, and this is never a bad thing; political poetry is often nothing more than polemic dressed up in line breaks. Ritsos has a five-thousand-year tradition of framework to operate in, and he takes full advantage of it, couching his political messages in ancient tales, never (at least, from the perspective of someone less familiar with modern than ancient Greek history) allowing the modern events to overwhelm the stories we're familiar with.
Edmund Keeley has won a number of awards for his translations of Ritsos, and rightly. Keeley has an ear for rhythm and structure that allows for excellent translation, and while his love of alliteration can lead to some slightly annoying lines (he adores quoting his own translation of "Penelope's Despair," in which the line "slowly studied the slaughtered suitors" is just painful to recite), he manages to keep it under control most of the time. Ritsos is the same way with the erotic in that his almost constant references to nudity and sex seem almost innocent most of the time (after all, this is Greece we're talking about, where it sometimes seems that every city block in every metropolitan area contains at least one unclothed statue), but every once in a while he just plain goes over the top. No matter; unlike many books of recent poetry, you'll find far more pearls than you will swine in this collection. ****
December 7, 2007
This is one of the fresher translations and gathering of the work of Yannis Ritsos, one of the most important poets Greece has seen.
May 31, 2008
This is an amazing book--one of the best available of the stunning poems of exile by Yannis Ritsos.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews