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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.
‘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
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.
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