Eleni Alexiou was born in Trikala, Greece in 1980. She holds a degree in Αncient and Modern Greek and Latin Language and Literature from the University of Patras and a diploma in classical guitar. She completed her postgraduate studies in Education at the University of Bath in the UK. She is a teacher in Secondary Education. She has published the poetry collections: The flash (Logeion, 2009), Poems we wrote together (Melani, 2015), and seven breaths ago (Saixpirikon, 2022). Her writings have appeared in respected literary journals and anthologies, while poems of hers have been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Albanian.
Your latest writing venture, the poetry collection επτά ανάσες πριν [seven breaths ago] was published by Saixpirikon in 2022. Tell us a few things about the book.
Seven Breaths Ago is a collection of poems written over the decade spanning 2012 to 2022. A few pieces trace their origins to earlier writings. The book is composed of seven sections, as the title suggests, and each section is made up of short poems, thoughts, and images that act as tesserae in a larger mosaic. What unites them is a spare, minimalist rendering of meaning, one that grants the reader the freedom to create their own continuation. I would say it is an interactive creation that sparks the reader’s reflection only as a point of departure, without demanding or presupposing understanding, but rather evoking emotion – which, I believe, is the true aim of art. The collection is dedicated to my parents: “mother, father, sea”, a wave of gratitude for the ocean of gifts they bestowed upon me.
“The minor and the major, the visible and the invisible, mine and others’. These are my sources of inspiration.” Which are the main themes your poetry delves into? Are there recurrent points of reference in your writings?
Before I answer your question, allow me a brief comment. Self-reference is often paradoxical for the creator, for it assigns them the roles of critic, analyst, and investigator. Yet, sometimes it invites us into the very workshop of creation, allowing a guided tour. Only in this way can I respond to questions about inspiration and creation, without feeling like a professor performing anatomy or a teacher explaining the solution to a problem.
Since I am speaking of my poetry, I would say that there is nothing in the world – natural or artificial, internal or external, tangible or imagined – that does not concern me. That is why in Seven Breaths Ago, one encounters various aspects of the human experience, as the poet Sotiris Pastakas remarks, ranging “from faith in humanity, love, and the small moments that compose the miracle of life” (“I believe in the little stone that hurt my finger / we carry the earth within us”), to the experience of exile, loss, and the struggle for survival (“My stomach is empty / unbearably so – / as if I bear many kilos of bread / or stones”), to the brutality of war and the futility of human conflict (“What if they lost / their babies /- the milk still/ runs alive”).
Yet, what seems to recur often in my writings is human relationships, and above all, Love. There was a time when I thought I should move away from this theme – that the feeling itself was outdated, much like the anti-romantic spirit of our times. However, I do not separate it from the “more important, social issues”. While some believe that the romantic and the social are distinct realms, for me no such division holds. What is Love but a matter of power, dominance, and submission? The first and greatest revolution, battle, victory or defeat one experiences – the origin of all that is good and evil. A field where education, thought, and human morality are revealed; a mirror reflecting stereotypes, expectations, and both personal and collective wounds. The recent awarding of the 2024 Grand Literary Prize to Pantelis Boukalas, who wrote “The End of Visits,” a poem about “the journeys we refused” – of Love – gives me renewed impetus to stay true to my own truth, to resist the ease of any situational cliché. To write freely, following the dictates of my Passion, as the poet and friend Ilias Kefalas once advised me many years ago.
In her review of the book, Dora Kaskali commented on how your poems converse with the current historical era, since they touch upon issues such as the pandemic, the refugee crisis, war, among others. How does poetry relate to its surrounding reality?
Poetry – and Art more broadly – functions as a mirror of society. Of course, this is not an original thought; it is a truth that has been spoken many times. Art reveals the ways in which people and ideas coexist, whether in conflict or in harmony, without always making it clear whether it speaks of the present or the past, or both at once. Take, for example, the pandemic, war, displacement – themes I explore in Seven Breaths Ago. These are issues that are both urgent and timeless. In the section titled “Refugee Camp”, I write: “this too is a kind of exile / to be freed from another’s weeping / not to wish to comfort them.” But what kind of exile do these lines refer to? That of 1922? The displacement following the invasion of Cyprus? The suffering of those from Sudan, Yemen Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine? Or is it perhaps exile in a deeper sense — the exile from our shared homeland, Humanity itself?
On the other hand, poetry also works as a telescopic lens. How does one envision the future? What do we long for? Poetry becomes a means of escape, a destination, a path and a compass pointing toward whatever one dares to imagine. As Greek poet Andreas Embirikos writes: “My eyelids are transparent curtains. When I open them, I see whatever happens to lie before me. When I close them, I see whatever I desire”. The same goes for poems – they are eyelids.
What about language? What role does language play in your writings?
“I don’t love you — I am loving you,” writes Greek poet Kostis Palamas. Have we ever wondered why? Could the poet’s choice of this specific grammatical form be connected to his desire to express deeper, more fervent emotion? Undoubtedly so. Language is the clothing of thought. Without words to give it shape, thought remains vague, elusive, indescribable. Non-existent. But language is a garment of a most wondrous kind: instead of concealing meaning, it reveals it, strips it bare. It may be an old and worn piece of clothing, or, on the contrary, something eccentric and strikingly new. But once thrown over the body of thought, it can utterly transform it. The role of language is therefore pivotal, and of particular concern to me. Especially the rhythm, the musicality of the verse: the pauses, the unforced flow from syllable to syllable, word to word. These often trouble me, delaying the final form of a poem. I always read my poems aloud and revise them, attending carefully to alliteration, cacophony, anything that might disrupt musicality.
Being a philologist, how could we foster love for reading, and especially love for reading poetry, among young people? How could we make poetry appealing again?
Poetry does not need to become appealing because, quite simply, it already is. It is we who must cultivate our minds, acquire the tools necessary to rise and look up to it. Fortunately, today’s schools are extrovert, open to society, and staffed by educators of high formal and substantial qualifications. Libraries, theatre groups, clubs devoted to rhetoric, creative writing, and reading for pleasure; festivals, competitions, educational trips, visits to cultural institutions, encounters with people from the worlds of science and art – these are just some of the avenues through which our children are exposed to a rich variety of stimuli. With over fifteen years of teaching experience in Music Schools of Greece, I can say with certainty that such experiences help students discover new ways of expressing themselves, collaborating, and coexisting. Within this framework of character development – by encouraging dialogue, exploratory learning, and experiential education – we strive to awaken and sustain their curiosity about all things. And within that small “all things” lies everything – and most certainly, Poetry.
How do Greek writers converse with global literary trends? Where does the local meet the national and the universal?
The relationship between Greek writers and international literary trends is not a matter that deeply preoccupies me – though I do observe and reflect upon it when circumstance brings it to the fore, as your question does now. I am aware that modern means and institutions facilitate exchanges among fellow artists across the globe; yet I have not, to this day, felt that such interaction is a priority in my own relationship with Art. To my mind, the poet’s task is to attune themselves not so much to literary trends, but to the shifting ways in which the human being relates to nature, to technology, to labour, to power, to fellow humans – and to the Self. Their challenge lies in bringing these issues into their work, in order to share their questions and concerns with the wider community. To become part of that body of engaged citizens who each struggle in their own way. If a writer’s alignment with such “trends” stems from genuine interest and not mere imitation, then yes – it is beautiful, desirable, and necessary to reconcile the personal with the collective, the local with the global.
*Interview by Athina Rossoglou
TAGS: LITERATURE & BOOKS | READING GREECE
