Greek Avant Garde Poetry



     

Nikos Engonopoulos







NEWS ON THE DEATH OF THE SPANISH POET
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA ON AUGUST 19TH  1936
IN THE DITCH OF  CAMINIA DE LA FUENTE 

                                                 ...una accion vil y disgraciado.

Art and poetry do not help us to live:

art and poetry help us

to die



absolute contempt

does  justice

to  all these rumors

the investigations

comments upon comments

that so often 
 
lazy and vain freelancers spread

regarding the  mysterious and shameful conditions

of  the execution of  unhappy  Lorca

by  the fascists



but at last! now everyone knows

that

for  some time now

— and above all in our cripples times —

It is not uncommon
 
to murder

the poets.





Poetry 1948

 
This season

of  the civil war

it is not a time

for poetry

and the like:

as soon as something is turning

to

writing

it seems

as if

it were

written

on the back side

of death

announcements




that is why

my poems

are so bitter

(and when — anyway —were not they?)

and 

— above all —

they are

so rarely

few.



(Transl. Panos Bosnakis)