Cicada

By one of Greeces foremost contemporary poets, Cicada is Phoebe Giannisis second collection in English. The cicada signifies metamorphosis in this breathtaking, lyrical book, which evokes the spirits of Archilochus, Plato, Empedocles, and Heraclitus. As the translator Brian Sneeden remarks: The I in Giannisis poetry is never static, never a fixed point, but part of a process of rebodying the ambient. Yet, despite the fluid, mythic nature of Giannisis poems, they are also exquisitely rooted in the everyday: the sea heard through a window, the murmur of a distant mechanical crane, a damp wind, a photo of John and Yoko. Giannisi is a poet internationally known for her idiosyncratic eco-poetics, as well as her poetic multimedia works and performances, and most of all for her brilliant vision glowing at the borders of language, voice, place, and memory.