Memorial Muse: Poems in Greek and English on Memories of Life and Death in a Hellenic Village (The Hellenic Muses) - Softcover

Almost all the poems of this collection were born after the poet, living in America as part of the Hellenic Diaspora and having since buried his parents and many of friends in the soil of his beloved homeland, received the message that his oldest brother was mortally ill. As when a school bell rings and students rush out from dark classrooms, memories of the poet’s youth began rushing out of the hiding places in his soul. Memories of the first years after the war in his homeland, full of Greek beauties and childish dreams, came out into the light, took shape and voice, and ultimately became rhythmic verses. Like the Muses of Parnassus, the verses seemed to descend from the mountain, sometimes running and signing, other times crying, but always trying to console the poet in his exile. No matter which mask each Muse wears, behind it hides Hellas, which, in his poetic imagination, seems like a lady in love, perfumed, like Parnassus in springtime, or like a widowed woman, burned by death, but still sweet and unbending, ready to sing about love and death or nobility and exile, in rhythms harmonically woven.