The first death

Dimitris Lyacos is is a Greek poet who spends much of his time haring back and forth between his London home and various readings in different parts of Greece. For summer he prefers Athens to England, but he came to the Round Festival for one evening and an afternoon. Extracts of his fourteen part poem were read by his translator, Shorshe Sullivan.

"Sea of Iron. Moon silent as pain in the depth of the mind. A body swept here and there on the rock like seaweed or a lifeless tentacle, fruit of a womb ship-wrecked by the winds, ensanguined and fleshfilled mire. The left arm cut short, the right arm to the end of the forearm, a rotted stick raving amid the water's lungs. Of the ravaged mouth there remained only a wound which closed slowly. From the eyes a blurred light. The eyes without lids. The legs down to the ankles - no feet. Spasms."

The tone is tragic, but Dimitris refuses the term, believing that since the emergence of George Steiner's Death of Tragedy (UK), it is difficult accept that tragedy can be written within the modern context..

"But at the end people who read it do not have this depressive feeling they might have say after reading the works of a French expressionist. It brings a strong element of fight. The man fights back with energy." Neither is it, according to Dimitris, a metaphysical poem. "There are no questions asked about god or the essence things. It is a philosophical poem."

The book can be bought in the UK.