tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post8192216883071046235..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Yannis Ritsos: In the Depths (You Can't Take It With You)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66661472754182835972011-07-05T09:21:48.050-07:002011-07-05T09:21:48.050-07:00"pop up in the back of the mind like bubbles ..."pop up in the back of the mind like bubbles from the mouth of a sunken statue." Amazing image. I saw that picture of Ritsos' tombstone early this morning and it made me anticipate our own hot, hot weather here. Obviously, Ritsos' looks even hotter and brighter and made me think of something you wrote several weeks ago about summer in Athens.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-24007215494296842422011-07-05T07:07:25.278-07:002011-07-05T07:07:25.278-07:00Ritsos poems pop up in the back of the mind like b...<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Monemvasia_Grab_Ritsos.jpg" rel="nofollow">Ritsos</a> poems pop up in the back of the mind like bubbles from the mouth of a sunken statue. This one is from the period of the Junta of the Colonels; the poet had been allowed to return from house arrest and exile on an island to internal exile and elective seclusion in Athens. The petrified figures in many of the poems seem to express this condition of isolation and estrangement, giving out mute cries, as figures in dreams.<br /><br />He lived and suffered through more than one dictatorship. The turbulence of modern Greek history complicates and deepens his work from the mid-30s on...<br /><br />(A cinematic registration of some of the same scenes of historical terror might be the great Theo Angelopoulos film The Traveling Players.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-40783269229402737762011-07-05T06:29:22.307-07:002011-07-05T06:29:22.307-07:00Tom,
"In the Depths" (deep) indeed -- w...Tom,<br /><br />"In the Depths" (deep) indeed -- who knows what treasures are down there? Sometimes a fossilized sand dollar (or, more likely, a piece of one) found washed up from the channel here, a real treasure. . . .<br /><br />7.5<br /><br />grey whiteness of sky against invisible<br />ridge, flycatcher calling whip WEEDEEER<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> with respect to co-ordinate,<br /> motion become “first”<br /><br /> equation, three-dimensional,<br /> takes away from space<br /><br />pink grey sky on horizon next to point,<br />osprey with fish flapping toward ridgeSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-43437919787325497992011-07-05T03:25:42.270-07:002011-07-05T03:25:42.270-07:00This was an excellent way to begin today, the gate...This was an excellent way to begin today, the gateway to High Summer. It will be scorchingly hot soon, with no chance at all of rain. Before switching television on (where language and images are both flattened and repeated to make everyone recite from the same script), it's much easier to recall how mysterious real mysteries are. Our own two bettas, Rainbow and Ruby, seem aware of this, regarding each other from their neighboring bowls, mentally composing final battle plans. Plumbing the depths of the Hackney Hoard, with its odd cast of characters and events, including a "psychogeographer", reinforces this. This particular abandoned shopping trolley is icing on the cake.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com