A Broken Man in Flower: versions of Yannis Ritsos

By David Harsent, Yannis Ritsos and John Kittmer

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Mar 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781780376509

Book preview

Cover: A Broken Man in Flower by David Harsent

A BROKEN MAN IN FLOWER

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. His life 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 Epitafios (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. During the post-World War Two civil war – because he sided with the left – Ritsos was arrested and sent to prison camps. Then, in 1967, when the Papadopoulos military junta took control of the country, he was again arrested, again his books were banned, again he spent time in prison camps, before being confined to house arrest on the island of Samos.

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.

David Harsent’s thirteen collections have won a number of awards, including the Forward Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also a librettist: his collaborations with composers, chiefly with Harrison Birtwistle, have been performed at major venues worldwide.

David Harsent’s In Secret:

‘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

‘[Ritsos] records, at times celebrates, the enigmatic, the irrational, the mysterious and invisible qualities of experience.’

– The New York Times Book Review

Cover art: Yannis Ritsos. Photography: Platon Maximos.

David Harsent has published thirteen volumes of poetry. Legion won the Forward Prize. Night was triple shortlisted in the UK and won the Griffin Poetry Prize. Fire Songs won the T.S. Eliot Prize. A new collection, Loss, appeared in 2020. A Broken Man in Flower: versions of Yannis Ritsos was published by Bloodaxe in 2023.

Harsent has collaborated with several composers, though most often with Harrison Birtwistle. Birtwistle/Harsent collaborations have been performed at major venues worldwide, including the Royal Opera House, the Salzburg Festival, the Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall. He holds a number of fellowships, including Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Fellow of the Hellenic Authors Society. 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. Because he supported the left, he suffered imprisonment or house arrest for many years, with his books banned repeatedly by successive dictators, from Metaxas to Papadoupolos. Twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, Ritsos won the Lenin Peace Prize, the former Soviet Union’s highest literary honour, as well as numerous other international awards.

John Kittmer is a former British ambassador to Greece and chairs The Anglo-Hellenic League. He has degrees in classics and modern Greek, and wrote a prize-winning PhD thesis on Yannis Ritsos. He is preparing a previously unpublished manuscript by Ritsos for publication.

DAVID HARSENT

A Broken Man

in Flower

versions of

YANNIS RITSOS

introduction by

JOHN KITTMER

Logo: Bloodaxe Books

To Patrick Davidson Roberts

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The sequence Homeland was published as a pamphlet by Rack Press in 2021.

Other poems appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, One Hand Clapping, Poetry London and The Times Literary Supplement.

A small number of these poems were first published in In Secret (Enitharmon Press, 2012) Thanks to Stephen Stuart-Smith for permission to reprint them here.

Special thanks are due to Yannis Ritsos’s daughter Eri Ritsou for her kind permission as executor of his literary estate; to Irini Mavropoulou and her father Platon Maximos for permission to reproduce our cover photograph from his book of photographs of Yannis Ritsos’s artwork; and to Dimitris Arvanitakis at Benaki Museum in Athens for providing the image.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTIONbyJOHN KITTMER

IKarlovasi on Samos, 2 April 1969

Yannis Ritsos, under house arrest at Karlovasi on Samos, writes to his friend and publisher, Nana Kallianesi

IIThe Broken Man in Flower

Timeline of Ritsos’s life and key work

A BROKEN MAN IN FLOWER

IPartheni Prison Camp, Leros

The Treaty

Penelope

The Plough

Unmarked

The Argo

The Studio

A Painting

A Break in Routine

Naked

Growing Old

Blocked

Newspeak

The Wax Museum

Endgame

Hindsight

Knowledge

The Blue Jug

Cancer

On the Edge

Blockade

Words

Content

Midnight

The Message

Things Shift

Double

Something and Nothing

Stones

Watermelons

No News

All of Us

Convalescence

Shame

In Short

At Dusk

The Corridor

IIHomeland: Eighteen Bitter Songs

Partheni Prison Camp / Samos

1: Baptism

2: Q&A

3: In Time

4: The People

5: Memorial

6: Dawn

7: ‘Freedom’

8: Green

9: Theology

10: To Greece

11: The Song

12: Offshore Trees

13: Feast Day

14: Epitaph

15: The Tides

16: The New House

17: One Thought

18: No Tears For Romiosini

IIISamos: house arrest

Abandoned

Poem

Ceremony

As If Loukas

Underwater

Fear

Substitution

Separate Ways

The View from Here

Just This

Squaddies

Reversals

Kollyva

Saturday 11 a.m.

Aware

Birdcall

Why?

Connections

Wrong

Out in the Open

The List

Followed

From Nowhere to Nowhere

Circle

Plans

Old Clothes

Memory’s Thread

Himself Alone

Frost

Departures III

Suspicion

That Other Man

Numbers

Absentee

In Reverse

Soldier Dolls

Waiting to Die

Almost

Before She Sleeps

Motionless

Woodworm

Omens

White

The Tree – The Hanged Man

The Other House

White Night

Life in Phares

Midnight

Masquerade

After Rain

Nausea

Habit

Leaves

Quotidian

Rain

By the Window

In Flower

Three-storey House with Basement

Call

Locked Off

Changes

Lies and Secrets

Ever

Fakes

Pointless

The Girl Who Regained Her Sight

Interrogation Centre

Locked

Badge of Honour

Midnight Knock

This

The Green Armchair

Sleepless

Baptism of Blood

The Summons

Renewal

In Readiness

Report

Greece

Hints

Broken

Testament

INTRODUCTION

I   Karlovasi on Samos, 2 April 1969

Yannis Ritsos, under house arrest at Karlovasi on Samos, writes to his friend and publisher, Nana Kallianesi.

Nanaki, my sweet, kind, very dear friend, my unforgettable friend – the short message from you was a