a Cavafy tribute

PEN Cavafy Tribute (2013) from Dimitris Papaioannou on Vimeo.

'seed of light'

A strange feeling
Nazim Hikmet

"The plum trees
---------------are in bloom
- the wild apricot flowers first,
-----------------------------the plum last...

My love,
let's sit
knee to knee
on the grass.
The air is delicious and light
- but not really warm yet -
and the almonds are green
-------------------and fuzzy, still
----------------------------very soft...

We're happy
------------because we're alive.
We'd probably have been killed long ago
if you were in London,
if I were in Tobruk or on an English freighter...

Put your hands on your knees, my love
- your wrists thick and white -
and open your left hand:
the daylight is inside your palm
--------------------like an apricot...
Of the people dead in yesterday's air raid,
----------------------about a hundred were under fire,
twenty-four still babies...

I like the color of pomegranate seeds, my love
- a pomegranate seed, seed of light -
I like melons fragant,
my plums tart..."

...a rainy day
far from fruits and you
- not a single tree has bloomed yet,
and there's even a chance of snow -
in Bursa prison,
carried away by a strange feeling
and about to explode,
I write this out of pigheadedness
- out of sheer spite - for myself and the people I love.

(1941)

- -

"Once that's done, you're all set. Free to roam the Open Library, discovering treasures, making connections, correcting errors, or sprinkling tidbits you know about books across the catalog. Naturally, you're also welcome to simply explore. Apart from over 20 million bibliographic records, we also have over 1 million free, readable books available for you to read, right now."
e assim se adere à openlibrary.org, um milhão de livros que se podem ler entre os quais este livro de poemas seleccionados de Nazim Hikmet que procuro há tanto tempo. este poema em particular faz parte dos poemas escolhidos escritos na prisão. a viagem istambulita alargou o universo da minha própria ignorância, em expansão sem big bang e sem limites.

e não será tão clara a corrente subterrânea que corre sob Pamuk, Cavafy, Dostoyevsky, undertow:

The City
C.P. Cavafy

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in these same houses.
You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.

- -
a definição e a história de 'nacionalismo' levam-no para campos de exclusão: estes três autores dão nova vista ao apego à sua própria origem: a cidade, a língua. (tu serás sempre a tua cidade, para onde quer que vás)-

(chego a conclusões: hoje como antes, os livros legíveis - os que interessa ler - são uma pequena percentagem de todos os livros, nada mudou nesse aspecto)

Cavafy. Kavafis, the med.

"There is no other city to go to: The city that makes us is the one within us. Reading Cavafy’s “The City” has changed the way I look at my own Istanbul." Pamuk on Kavafis.

"The shuttered shops, the handful of old pine trees, the run-down buildings, the narrow streets, the squares, all helped me realize that versions of the Istanbul of my childhood still survive in cities all over the Mediterranean. I love Cavafy’s poetry not just as a reflection of his exemplary life, but also for the landscape it depicts, for its crumbling buildings, and because I immediately identify with the texture of Mediterranean life."

Petros Koublis (silence) ou outra nota para a Trienal

"The area that surrounds Athens is composed by a certain antithesis, as the vast urban surface meets with the countryside.
Surrounded by the silence of centenarian olive groves, meadows, mountains and seas, the city today struggles to carry the weight of its own existence, facing a rather tough and tense present. This is a prolonged silence that seems to surround the loud and desperate cry that comes out of the capital city.

With more than 4 million people living today in Athens’ metropolitan area, the city itself is a controversial image on its own, sketched by the difficult palpable reality that everyday an increasing number of people have to face. It is a depression that gradually influences every aspect of life, economically and psychologically, in quite a dramatic and absolute way, as the consequences of this crisis are extending and the agony for tomorrow is constantly growing. Around the world, images of graphic violence, extensive riots and distressing poverty have been transmitted by the media, enhancing the depressed portrait of the city. The center of Athens has been the main scenery of the crisis that this country is going through and the drama in the streets of the city provided a visual narrative for the Greek Crisis chronicles.

The images of this project were made around the outskirts of Athens, less than 30 miles away from the heart of the capital. It is the area that surrounds the depressed city and all the millions of its citizens’ individual stories. Outside the invisible borders of the extended metropolitan area, in the land that lies behind the edge of the city, time seems to move parallel but in a different density. There is an inevitable contrast between the two states, a parable manifested by the discreet mystery that trees seem to hide among their branches and seas among their waves. This is an alternate state in parallel time, where silence seems to carry inside it a waiting, patiently whispering a long forgotten language.

There is no beauty that is timeless but the timelessness of nature can reflect a new direction, maybe even a hope.
It’s not a blissful silence but it’s an inspiring one."

texto que acompanha a exposição In Landscape de Petros Koublis e que interessa compara com a de Azade Köker, duas cidades em países contíguos, um dentro e outro fora da 'comunidade europeia', um abismo político entre eles, um abismo de situação. se o que é imposto pelo poder aos cidadãos de um estado fosse facilmente visível, esta seria a janela de observação. apesar das diferenças geográficas que moldaram ambos os países, um que se extende pela longa Anatólia com as suas culturas particulares, outro que se espraia em ilhas ou sobe pelos balcãs (verde escuro): mas ambos comunhando tantos lugares e, no entanto, hoje, poderiam estar em ilhas opostas.

sobre a Grécia gostei de ler a comparação de Tabucchi: a Ítaca de Homero, a Ítaca de Cavafy, a Ítaca de Sophia. com Tabucchi, diria que estes são os únicos lonely planet que interessam.

 em termos sonoros seria o silêncio grego contra o clamor turco. o despojamento vs. exuberância.

Kavafis ('this city will always follow you')

""I can't say I know much about poetry," Evgenia replied. "I have heard of a poet called Kavafis, though. He was Greek. I don't know if you..."
Yekta's eyes lit up.
"Why, Madam, he was a poet of the highest order."
"My grandfather knew some of his relatives; they used to live in Istanbul. It was my grandfather who introduced me to his poetry."
"Well, it's sublime." He was in the mood now. He cleared his throat and began a recital. "This city will always follow you / You'll walk the same streets / Grow old in the same neighbourhoods / Turn grey in the same houses / It's this city you'll always end up in / Don't hope for any other place..."
Ahmet Ümit em A Memento for Istanbul.
- -

THE CITY
Constantino Kavafis

You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city shall be found better than this.
Each one of my endeavors is condemned by fate;
my heart lies buried like a corpse.
How long in this disintegration can the mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I gaze,
I see here only the black ruins of my life
where I have spent so many years, and ruined and wrecked myself."

New places you shall never find, you'll not find other seas.
The city still shall follow you. You'll wander still
in the same streets, you'll roam in the same neighborhoods,
in these same houses you'll turn gray.
You'll always arrive at this same city. Don't hope for somewhere
else;
no ship for you exists, no road exists.
Just as you've ruined your life here, in this
small corner of earth, you've wrecked it now the whole world
through.
(daqui)

ou

The City

You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted."

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land -- do not hope --
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.


Kavafis, Cavafy, “from Constantinople by descent, but born in Alexandria.”


"Cavafy came to Istanbul when he was only 19 and stayed with relatives in the Bosphorus suburb of Yeniköy for three years. How much the cosmopolitan Istanbul of late Ottoman times influenced his development as a poet and as a man has been a matter of hot literary debate. For the Istanbul Rums, he is a son of an Istanbulite Rum family and remained so until the end." (daqui)