A Broken Man in Flower: versions of Yannis Ritsos

by Yannis Ritsos, David Harsent (Translator), John Kittmer (Introduction)

Overview

A Broken Man in Flower presents new versions of work by one of the most significant Greek poets of the last century, translated by one of the UK's most renowned contemporary poets.

The life of Yannis Ritsos was, to say the least, troubled. From an early age, he was dogged by the tuberculosis that killed his mother and brother. His father and sister suffered breakdowns and spent time in institutions. His poem Epitaphios (1936), a lament for a young man shot dead by the police during a tobacco workers’ strike, was publicly burned by the Metaxas regime and his books banned. Throughout his life he wa repeatedly persecuted, arrested and placed under house arrest by the oppressive Greek authorities.

The violence and tyranny of dictatorship is often fractured by the surreal. In the poems collected here, written by Ritsos while in prison and under house arrest, that fracture in perception is a wound. A Broken Man in Flower has an introduction by John Kittmer and includes the text of an illuminating and vivid letter sent by Ritsos to his publisher in 1969 while under house arrest on Samos describing his life – and the lives of Greeks – under the repressive rule of the Colonels.

Harsent's versions of Ritsos' poems express the revolutionary and experimental nature of his work while also remaining accurate translations from the Greek.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780376493
Publisher:	Bloodaxe Books
Publication date:	06/06/2023
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Harsent has published thirteen volumes of poetry. Legion won the Forward Prize. Night was triple shortlisted in the UK and won the Griffin International Poetry Prize. Fire Songs won the T.S. Eliot Prize. A new collection, Loss, appeared in January 2020. A Broken Man in Flower: versions of Yannis Ritsos is published by Bloodaxe in 2023. Harsent has collaborated with several composers, though most often with Harrison Birtwistle. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Roehampton. 

Yannis Ritsos (1909-90) is generally considered to be – along with Cavafy, Seferis and Elytis – one of the most significant Greek poets of the last century. From an early age, he was dogged by the tuberculosis that killed his mother and brother. His father and sister suffered breakdowns and spent time in institutions. During his lifetime, his poems were publicly burned by the Metaxas regime, and his books banned. Ritsos himself was repeatedly arrested and sent to prison camps, before being confined to house arrest on the island of Samos.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION by John Kittmer
11    I  Karlovasi on Samos, 2 April 1969
Yannis Ritsos, under house arrest at Karlovasi on Samos, writes to his friend and publisher, Nana Kallianesi
21     II  The Broken Man in Flower
40     Timeline of Ritsos’s life and key work

A BROKEN MAN IN FLOWER
I  Partheni Prison Camp, Leros
    47     The Treaty
    48     Penelope
    49     The Plough
    50     Unmarked
    51     The Argo
    52     The Studio
    53     A Painting
    54     A Break in Routine
    55     Naked
    56     Growing Old
    57     Blocked
    58     Newspeak
    59     The Wax Museum
    60     Endgame
    61     Hindsight
    62     Knowledge
    63     The Blue Jug
    64     Cancer
    65     On the Edge
    66     Blockade
    67     Words
    68     Content
    69     Midnight
    70     The Message
    71     Things Shift
    72     Double
    73     Something and Nothing
    74     Stones
    75     Watermelons
    76     No News
    77     All of Us
    78     Convalescence
    79     Shame
    80     In Short
    81     At Dusk
    82     The Corridor

II  Homeland: Eighteen Bitter Songs
Partheni Prison Camp / Samos
    85     1:  Baptism
    86     2:  Q&A
    87     3:  In Time
    88     4:  The People
    89     5:  Memorial
    90     6:  Dawn
    91    7:  ‘Freedom’
    92     8:  Green
    93     9: Theology
    94     10: To Greece
    95     11: The Song
    96     12: Offshore Trees
    97    13: Feast Day
    98    14: Epitaph
    99    15: The Tides
    100     16: The New House
    101     17: One Thought
    102     18:  No Tears For Romiosini

III  Samos: house arrest
    105     Abandoned
    106     Poem
    107     Ceremony
    108     As If Loukas
    109     Underwater
    110     Fear
    111     Substitution
    112     Separate Ways
    113     The View from Here
    114     Just This
    115     Squaddies
    116     Reversals
    117     Kollyva
    118     Saturday 11 a.m.
    119     Aware
    120     Birdcall
    121     Why?
    122     Connections
    123     Wrong
    124     Out in the Open
    125     The List
    126     Followed
    127     From Nowhere to Nowhere
    128     Circle
    129     Plans
    130     Old Clothes
    131     Memory’s Thread
    132     Himself Alone
    133     Frost
    134     Departures III
    135     Suspicion
    136     That Other Man
    137     Numbers
    138     Absentee
    139     In Reverse
    140     Soldier Dolls
    141     Waiting to Die
    142     Almost
    143     Before She Sleeps
    144     Motionless
    145     Woodworm
    146     Omens
    147     White
    148     The Tree – The Hanged Man
    149     The Other House
    150     White Night
    151      Life in Phares
    152     Midnight
    153     Masquerade
    154     After Rain
    155     Nausea
    156     Habit
    157     Leaves
    158     Quotidian
    159     Rain
    160     By the Window
    161     In Flower
    162     Three-storey House with Basement
    163     Call
    164     Locked Off
    165     Changes
    166     Lies and Secrets
    167     Ever
    168     Fakes
    169     Pointless
    170     The Girl Who Regained Her Sight
    171     Interrogation Centre
    172     Locked
    173     Badge of Honour
    174     Midnight Knock
    175     This
    176     The Green Armchair
    177     Sleepless
    178     Baptism of Blood
    179     The Summons
    180     Renewal
    181     In Readiness
    182     Report
    183     Greece
    184     Hints
    187     Broken
    188     Testament
 

Editorial Reviews

‘His versions are unyielding in their consistency, and the poet-translator has succeeded in finding an apt literary voice for a well-curated collection of poems… I recommend reading A Broken Man in Flower not only for its mesmerizing formalist strength and ingenuity, but for its profound importance as a document of courage and resistance against a brutally repressive regime, a testament to the quiet yet formidable might contained in the poet’s verse. In the shrunken world of the individual under both confinement and the microscope of surveillance, we watch as time cinematically slows down, and man becomes his own sole companion.’ - Suzana Vuljevic, Words Without Borders

‘This intimate record of thoughts, emotions, hopes, fears, the ‘intensity of vision’ under extreme conditions is historically important and will illuminate studies in different areas of the curriculum.’ – Frank Startup, The School Librarian, on A Broken Man in Flower

‘Harsent’s A Broken Man in Flower presents poems from multiple series written during Ritsos’s years of arrest … Ritsos was prolific, and there is a good selection here of poems about the terror of oppression and the misuse of power.’ – Evan Jones, Times Literary Supplement

‘The meaning and gravity of the work unfolds incrementally … Harsent certainly captures something vital and lasting about the work…' - Chris Davis, Morning Star

'These are "versions" of Ritsos by a major English poet. Yannis Ritsos, one of the most celebrated Greek poets of the 20th century, has at last found a "companion translator" up to the task. The work that is experimental and revolutionary in Greek is experimental and revolutionary in English. Ritsos's output is enormous, his life heroic and eventful, his voice an embodiment of national courage.' — The Times Literary Supplement, on David Harsent's In Secret

'[Ritsos] records, at times celebrates, the enigmatic, the irrational, the mysterious and invisible qualities of experience.' – The New York Times Book Review, on David Harsent's In Secret

'David Harsent’s versions of the great Greek poet Yannis Ritsos make superb English poems. I can’t recommend them too warmly. They’re well complemented by an introduction by Harsent’s Greek-speaking collaborator, John Kittmer, that sets them in the context of Ritsos’s experiences under the dreadful Papadopoulos regime, and by a moving long letter Ritsos wrote to his publisher from house arrest on Samos ... [a] remarkable book.' – Edmund Prestwich, London Grip

From the Publisher