Speak.
Say something, anything.
Just don't stand there like a solid absence.
Choose even one word
that binds you tighter
---------------------------------------------
Personal notes:
This poem was published as part of the collection 'The little of the world' (1971).
It is perhaps Dimoula's most popular poem.
The poem is playful in style but melancholic in its content. The last line establishes its context: it involves the poet taking a long coastal walk in the verbal absence of a companion.
It is possible that this companion is physically absent as well (that the poet is in fact alone), though such a possibility does not change the poem's meaning. Whether physically there or not, the companion's silence equals to an absence. There is also the possibility that the poet is addressing herself.
The poet personifies most of the words she voices. In a few occasions, this personification can only be described as 'literal' (the word 'boat' is sinking, the word 'stone' is unbreakable, the word 'wave' does not stand still). In other occasions this personification is figurative ( the word 'moment' is drowning, words dream or have feuds between them).
to indefiniteness.
Say:
"unfairly",
"tree",
"bare".
Say:
"we will see",
"imponderable",
"weight".
There are so many words that dream of
a short, unbound, life with your voice.
Speak.
We have so much sea ahead of us.
Where we finish
the sea begins.
Say something.
Say "wave", which does not stand still.
Say "boat", which sinks
if you overload it with prepositions.
Say "moment"
that screams help it is drowning,
don't save it,
say
"I did not hear".
Speak.
The words have feuds between them,
they have rivalries:
if one of them captures you,
another sets you free.
Pick a word from the night
by luck.
A whole night by luck.
Don't say "whole",
say "diminutive",
which lets you escape.
Diminutive
sensation,
sorrow
whole
mine.
The whole night.
Speak.
Say "star", which fades.
Silence does not diminish with just one word.
Say "stone",
which is an unbreakable word.
Like that, so far from it,
so I can put a title
to this coastal walk.
---------------------------------------------
Personal notes:
This poem was published as part of the collection 'The little of the world' (1971).
It is perhaps Dimoula's most popular poem.
The poem is playful in style but melancholic in its content. The last line establishes its context: it involves the poet taking a long coastal walk in the verbal absence of a companion.
It is possible that this companion is physically absent as well (that the poet is in fact alone), though such a possibility does not change the poem's meaning. Whether physically there or not, the companion's silence equals to an absence. There is also the possibility that the poet is addressing herself.
The poet personifies most of the words she voices. In a few occasions, this personification can only be described as 'literal' (the word 'boat' is sinking, the word 'stone' is unbreakable, the word 'wave' does not stand still). In other occasions this personification is figurative ( the word 'moment' is drowning, words dream or have feuds between them).
I love so much this poem and I was strucked by the sound of the words, when I heard it in Greek ( and so many times I listen to it in Greek language!!!my obsession! ). I agree with your interpretation and the poem seems to me a poetics manifesto. The irreducibility of some words and the minimalism can express the vague feelings, better than complicated tinsels. Dimoula's style reminds me of the italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti who abolished punctuation and dug into the words. "“Ungaretti purged the language of all that was but ornament, of all that was too approximate for the precise tension of his line. Through force of tone and sentiment, and a syntax stripped to its essential sinews, he compelled words to their primal power.” (From http://www.enotes.com/giuseppe-ungaretti-criticism/ungaretti-giuseppe)
ReplyDeleteClelia Albano