ABYSS AND SONG: SELECTED POEMS by GEORGE SARANTARIS
Reading by Eileen Tabios ABYSS AND SONG: Selected Poems by George Sarantaris Trans. from the Greek by Pria Luka (World Poetry Books, 2023) I’ve been aware of relatively new publisher World Poetry Books since its beginnings and its release of the first English collection of Greek modernist George Sarantaris, ABYSS AND SONG , affirms why I’m such a fan. An important role of any publisher is to make more known a particular author and I’d not heard of Sarantaris until this book. But I’ve been a fan of post-Classic Greek poetry since Odysseus Elytis who was among the handful of poets to leave an impression on me as a youngster, long before I turned a more focused eye on poetry in my mid-thirties. Indeed, I’d learn from the translator Pria Louka’s Introduction that Elytis was among Sarantaris’ “mentees”—that’s quite a Wow considering Elytis’ own poetry. Sarantaris’ poems reveal the embeddedness of a specific Grecian sun I associate with the light over its seas (to the extent that I’ve f