Paros-Piraeus: Mini-History of the World
On reliefs inside the large gravesyou can observe in fine detailhow they caught ducks with huge nets on the Nilehow they drove water to the fields with sluiceshow they swam in the water by kicking their feethow they ate onion bread at the table with their handshow the cook would cutvegetables into slices with his knifeand fry the onions in a panhow the mothers would call out at duskto draw their children homehow giant magnolia flowers would fall suddenlyslowly white on the dirthow the cicadas stubbornly kept singingeven after sunsethow the sea was calm at morning and restless by noonhis fingers struck the keys so violentlythe crickets reminded usof this late summerthat soon ends
Feature Date
- March 31, 2022
Series
- Translation
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
”Paros-Piraeus: Mini-History of the World” by Phoebe Giannisi, translated by Brian Sneeden, from CICADA, copyright © 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 by Phoebe Giannisi, Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 by Brian Sneeden.
Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Sophia Camplioni
Phoebe Giannisi, born in Athens, is a poet and an architect with a Phd in Classics (Lyon, 1994). Her work expands in several media investigating the poetics of voice, land and place, identity and metamorphosis. Giannisi has presented her work in poetic installations in several venues in Europe. She is the author of eight books of poetry in Greek, with the more recent ones focusing on the personas of animal poets (cicada, goat, nightingale). Books in English, both translated by Brian Sneeden: Homerica (World Poetry Books: 2017), chosen by Anne Carson as a favorite book of 2017, and recently Cicada, published by New Directions (2022). http://phoebegiannisi.net/en/
Brian Sneeden is a poet, literary translator, and editor. His collection of poems, Last City, was published by Carnegie Mellon University Press in 2018. His poetry has received the Iowa Review Award in Poetry, the Indiana Review 1/2K Prize, and has appeared in Harvard Review Online, Poetry Daily, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications. His translations have received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship, the World Literature Today Translation Award for Poetry, the Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize, a PEN/Heim Translation Grant, and other recognitions. His translation of Phoebe Giannisi’s Homerica (2017) was selected by Anne Carson as a favorite book of 2017, and his translation of Giannisi’s collection Cicada was published by New Directions in 2022. He is a co-founding editor of World Poetry Books, where he served as team lead on books which received the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and the Academy of American Poets’ Raiziss/de Palchi Book Award. He is a lecturer in English at Manchester Metropolitan University.
"Giannisi’s work glitters with such fragments: minimal, direct, and dense with loss."
—Max Sydney Smith, Review31
"Sneeden is a meticulous translator and a poet in his own right. He brings Phoebe Giannisi’s work to life with immediacy and conviction."
—Edmund Keeley
"Giannisi is unquestionably herself within a vanguard of Greek poets for whom self-awareness and honesty have become second nature."
—Shon Arieh-Lerer, World Literature Today
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
