(Born Athens, Greece, 1963)
The publisher and one of the founding members of Ah, Maria (1990–94), the first independent literary magazine in Bulgaria after the fall of Communism, Dimitris Allos lives and works at the intersection of Bulgarian and Greek. His poetry has been translated into Bulgarian and he translates Bulgarian literature into Greek, including that of Iana Boukova (p. 339) before she began writing in Greek herself. Like hers, his poetry is full of animals and plants, but unlike the poets associated with Farmakon magazine, nature for him is more worldly, often urban, and sometimes even urbane. He studied Sociology at Sofia University but returned to Athens and has lived there since the mid-1990s. His poems have also been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, and English.
Ψηλός στα άχυρα (Tall in the Hay), Kastaniotis, 2000; Φωνές που δεν γλύτωσαν (Unspared Voices), Arts Foundation, 2002.
«. . . κι εγώ που τρώω μνήμη
σαν κυκλαδίτικο μνημείο . . .»
Δε θυμάμαι πια το όνομά της
το πρόσωπό της ίσως ένα
γκρέμισμα τώρα μετανάστες
κομμένο το ρεύμα
θυμάμαι όμως καλά λιακάδα ήτανε
μεσημέρι
χλωρός ιδρώτας
σκόνη ιδιωτικού δρόμου
χέρι Θεού κατάστηθα θυμάμαι
που μάλαζε τα ψυχικά υλικά
κι εσένα
να αμολάς τους δαλματίνους στο δωμάτιο
γιεπ-γιεπ
να με φιλεύεις το σαββατιανό
να με ταΐζεις το σταφύλι
ρώγα τη ρώγα
στον πολιτισμό του κορμιού της
βαθιά
έως το μέσα των σύννεφων
‘. . . and I who feed on memory
like a cycladic monument . . .’
I no longer remember her name
her face perhaps
a precipice, now refugees
electricity cut off
but I remember clearly a sun drenched
midday
fresh sweat
dust of a private alley
God’s hand right on my chest
I remember kneading my soul’s material
and you
letting the dalmatians free in the room
oaou ouaou
treating me to black grapes
feeding me
grape by grape
with the civilization of her body
deep
down to the innards
of the clouds
Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke