George Seferis

[Phyrebrat]

Hello. Does anyone here read Seferis’ poetry?

I’ve never met another person who has and I do love his dreamy abstract lyricism.

 

[The Big Peat]

Hello. Does anyone here read Seferis’ poetry?

I’ve never met another person who has and I do love his dreamy abstract lyricism.

Me!

The epigraph to GGK's Tigana is from Seferis:

“What can a flame remember? If it remembers a little less than necessary, it goes out; if it remembers a little more than is necessary, it goes out. If only it could teach us, while it burns, to remember correctly.”

And from there I decided to go rummaging through his stuff. There's some lovely poems there.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

I read an English-language anthology of his poems like 20 years ago. I don't recall anything from the individual poems but I have a lingering remembrance of not having enjoyed them.

Is your favorite poem by him online?

 

[Phyrebrat]

I don’t know — I’m just enjoying the sort of wash-over-me element of them. Mostly it’s the odd line or couplet that are just beautiful.