Rehearsal / 57. Phoebe Giannisi
Translated from the Greek by Brian Sneeden
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SONG tragoudi, n.
i. a canticle, small goat.
From tragodia / tragedy / ‘goat song,’
a chorus consisting of goats.
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(Three Excerpts.)
Translated from the Greek by Brian Sneeden
SONG tragoudi, n.
i. a canticle, small goat.
From tragodia / tragedy / ‘goat song,’
a chorus consisting of goats.
(Three Excerpts.)
GOATSONG / τραγωδία / τράγος / ᾠδή
(Orpheus)
tossed into now
with the momentum of yesterday and tomorrow you sing
voice
of spring
the air laden with fragrances
from elsewhere from here and what’s to come
waiting to catch the sound of his approach
laden but light
as light but full
your head
flies and sings
washes up onshore with the waves
marks time for the oarsmen
who sing with him and row
while driving
the fish to foam-level the fish
to the pitch dark of the deep
dolphins
lions deer beasts of the field
listen transfixed
in the afternoon sun
the gypsy shuts off the megaphone
brown-soil red-soil he shouts
soil for all your balconies
and circles back to sell
while in the dusk
a warm breeze carries
the dizzying fragrance of ‘angelica’ flowers
he thinks of Eurydice his own angelica
lying with his own soil held tightly in his arms
and sings without pause
knowing that when he stops
he won’t be able to keep from turning his head
to look on the past
and lose
him and her and the spring sun
and the coming summer most beautiful of them all
(Orpheus)
tossed into now
with the momentum of yesterday and tomorrow you sing
voice
of spring
the air laden with fragrances
from elsewhere from here and what’s to come
waiting to catch the sound of his approach
laden but light
as light but full
your head
flies and sings
washes up onshore with the waves
marks time for the oarsmen
who sing with him and row
while driving
the fish to foam-level the fish
to the pitch dark of the deep
dolphins
lions deer beasts of the field
listen transfixed
in the afternoon sun
the gypsy shuts off the megaphone
brown-soil red-soil he shouts
soil for all your balconies
and circles back to sell
while in the dusk
a warm breeze carries
the dizzying fragrance of ‘angelica’ flowers
he thinks of Eurydice his own angelica
lying with his own soil held tightly in his arms
and sings without pause
knowing that when he stops
he won’t be able to keep from turning his head
to look on the past
and lose
him and her and the spring sun
and the coming summer most beautiful of them all
(Nausicaa I)
Once in Delos near the altar of Apollo I saw such a thing,
a just-sprouting young shoot of a palm tree.
The Odyssey
the Japanese poet Bashō had a banana tree
for a house and a name
the Greek planted another
in his garden
without metaphysics
he needed to feed his child
Once in Delos near the altar of Apollo I saw such a thing,
a just-sprouting young shoot of a palm tree.
The Odyssey
the Japanese poet Bashō had a banana tree
for a house and a name
the Greek planted another
in his garden
without metaphysics
he needed to feed his child
another Greek—this one Achaean—
met on a riverbank
near an estuary to the sea a maiden palm tree
I know only the palm tree of Delos sprouting from the earth
a bloom such as you leaves me in awe
—so he told her—
poor Nausicaa
he never even touched your knees
those delicate words heard once
only afterwards to lose forever
this supplicant laying at your feet
the owner
of the sunken cargo ship
it was—who else—your beloved father
who boldly drove the stranger out beyond
from where neither the boat that sent him
nor he would return
because he was going far—to where his longing was
for men longing is their destination
far from Nausicaa
so forget the stranger’s honeyed words
a momentary balm for the heart
balm arrow to open the wound
it will never happen again
the stamp of the deed the indelible mark
though you still go on wondering:
was it better to have met him?
couldn’t ignorance of happiness be
a mortal’s shield?
Cicadas
Quickly the shedding progressed. Now, the
head is free. The proboscis. Now the front legs
gradually emerge from their casings. The body
suspended in a horizontal position, legs upwards.
Wings fledgling. Still creased, they look like the
curved indentions of an arc. Ten minutes are
sufficient for this first phase of transformation.
Jean-Henri Fabre, La Cigale: La Transformation
Socrates … as we know, cicadas were human once, but
after the Muses invented song some people were
so entranced by the pleasure of singing that they
didn’t eat or drink, and before they knew it, died.
Plato, Phaedrus
Stillness
the cicada’s cry
drills into the rock
Bashō, tr. Robert Hass
I Archilochus
Leaves of ivy play with the wind
apples redden on the branches
and then fall
the mouth fills with words
cicadas
blend with the noise of the cement mixer
and the ants
that walk along the wall
cutting a path entire armies
walking single file
to our dinner table
pears in the basket
you’ve spread out to ripen
you talk about partners
and the shield you tossed
into the game
say you were bravely defeated
through the ivy the sea
beckons you
distant bewildered turbulent
II Winged Words
(For Mitsos)
From drums in the viscera
a cicada screams
song of gathering
marked by weather fluctuations
and the dance of the other male
chant of premarital rituals
song of annoyances
croak of protest in captivity
when you catch its wing
seized a cicada by the wing
the summer my brother
ate a cicada
it fluttered
and screeched
alien voice from the fence
of the teeth
when the mouth opened
the cicada
took off flying
they call you cicada
you always face the sea
III
The coming of age
we hope it will leave behind our voice
voice greater than life
because as Socrates says
cicadas
attendants to the muses
did nothing but sing
ceaselessly
to die in the end
fam-
ished
singing with the authority of an empty stomach
in Aetolia today the children will tie the cicadas with a string
and then leave them on a branch to hear them sing
(though in captivity
they die)
Order direct from
Fitzcarraldo here.
Phoebe Giannisi was born in Athens. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, including most recently, Thetis and Aedon ( Kastaniotis, 2021). Her work focuses on the borders between poetry and performance, and investigates the connections of poetics with body and place. She is a Professor of Architecture and Cultural Studies at the University of Thessaly, where she teaches creative writing and curates public poetry performances.
Fitzcarraldo here.
Phoebe Giannisi was born in Athens. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, including most recently, Thetis and Aedon ( Kastaniotis, 2021). Her work focuses on the borders between poetry and performance, and investigates the connections of poetics with body and place. She is a Professor of Architecture and Cultural Studies at the University of Thessaly, where she teaches creative writing and curates public poetry performances.
Brian Sneeden is the author of Last City (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2018). His poetry and translations have received the Iowa Review Award in Poetry, an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship, the World Literature Today Translation Prize for Poetry, the Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize and a PEN/Heim Translation Grant. He is a senior lecturer in creative writing and publishing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
