FOUR Poems
Angelos KYRIOU;
translated by
Theodoros CHIOTIS
the girl on the 4th floor wants me to die
she shut me inside the elevator and forced me to kiss myself on the mirror until my lips melted away
use of prevailing tendency (they prolong you)
words build, they build you
sounds build, they build you
images build, they build you
smells build, they build you
movements build, they build you
thoughts build, they build you
—people they give birth people they enjoy people—
people tear you down
portable
keyboard from which the U key was ripped out is now sufficiently worn down that the I key is about to come off as well
storage #
sun on the screen, now face and sun, well ok just the face, ok I helter skelter put words on the face, I finish doing that, I look at it, underneath the nose it reads: I do not cry from the events themselves but rather from their photographs
Angelos KYRIOU lives in Athens. He began to write and
record in the middle of the last decade and continues to do so to this very
day.
Theodoros CHIOTIS has studied Classics and Modern Greek at the universities of London and Oxford. He is the editor and translator of the anthology Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis (Penned in the Margins, 2015). Other publications include Screen (in collaboration with photographer Nikolas Ventourakis; Paper Tigers Books, 2017) and limit.less: towards an assembly of the sick (Litmus, 2017). His work has been featured in journals and anthologies in Greece, the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Poland and Croatia. He has been invited to read at various literary festivals in Greece, the UK, the US, Croatia, Germany, amongst others. He has translated contemporary British and American poets into Greek and Aristophanes into English. He is a member of the editorial board of the Greek literary magazine [φρμκ] and a contributing editor for Hotel magazine. His project Mutualised Archives, an ongoing performative interdisciplinary work unfolding throughout the whole of 2017, received the Dot Award by the Institute for the Future of Book and Bournemouth University; he was also awarded a High Commendation from the Forward Prizes for Poetry in 2017. He lives in Athens and works as the Co-ordinator of Scholarly Research and Digital Development of the Cavafy Archive (Onassis Foundation), as co-curator of the Digital Nights series of talks at the Onassis Cultural Centre and as curator of the Thoughts and Images series of talks at the Onassis Library.
Theodoros CHIOTIS has studied Classics and Modern Greek at the universities of London and Oxford. He is the editor and translator of the anthology Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis (Penned in the Margins, 2015). Other publications include Screen (in collaboration with photographer Nikolas Ventourakis; Paper Tigers Books, 2017) and limit.less: towards an assembly of the sick (Litmus, 2017). His work has been featured in journals and anthologies in Greece, the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Poland and Croatia. He has been invited to read at various literary festivals in Greece, the UK, the US, Croatia, Germany, amongst others. He has translated contemporary British and American poets into Greek and Aristophanes into English. He is a member of the editorial board of the Greek literary magazine [φρμκ] and a contributing editor for Hotel magazine. His project Mutualised Archives, an ongoing performative interdisciplinary work unfolding throughout the whole of 2017, received the Dot Award by the Institute for the Future of Book and Bournemouth University; he was also awarded a High Commendation from the Forward Prizes for Poetry in 2017. He lives in Athens and works as the Co-ordinator of Scholarly Research and Digital Development of the Cavafy Archive (Onassis Foundation), as co-curator of the Digital Nights series of talks at the Onassis Cultural Centre and as curator of the Thoughts and Images series of talks at the Onassis Library.