(Born Athens, Greece, 1962)
Christos Angelakos is an ardent fan of Amy Winehouse, and listens to music while he writes, often channeling the rhythms directly into his poetry and prose. His macabre imagination is fueled by the gothic strain in both French- and English-language traditions. He studied Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Athens and at the Sorbonne with a dissertation on the poet and novelist Aris Alexandrou. He has published two novels and a collection of poetry, and translated Jean Starobinski’s essays into Greek. He writes criticism for Greece’s best literary magazines and has created a series for the National Radio Station on the poets and prose writers of the Generation of the 1970s.
Τα φώτα απέναντι (The Lights Across the Way), Ikaros, 2008.
Αν βυθιστείς μες στο κεφάλι σου
κανείς δε θα μπορέσει να σε σώσει
ούτε οι δύτες που πυκνώνουν στο ναυάγιο
ανοίγοντας κιβώτια και βγάζοντας νομίσματα
χτενάκια από φίλντισι και γιορτινούς ταφτάδες
ούτε η γυναίκα που έγραψε τη μοίρα σου
κρατώντας το ράμφος ενός σφαγμένου
κόκορα σαν πένα
ούτε κι εγώ
που απόψε το ’θελα πολύ να μην υπάρχεις
no one can save you
not the divers who fill the shipwreck
opening boxes and removing coins,
ebony combs and party taffetas
nor the woman who wrote your fate
with the beak
of a sacrificial rooster for a pen
nor I
who wish tonight
you didn’t exist
Karen Van Dyck