[11/20/25] Giannisi, Phoebe / Sneeden, Brian (tr.): Homerica

World Poetry, paperback

Publication Date: November 20, 2025

Publisher Marketing: The first English translation of one of Greece’s foremost poetic voices, now in a revised second edition, offers a contemporary Odyssey of loss, longing, motherhood, and metamorphosis. The mythic characters and scenes of Homerica never feel otherworldly—rather, they appear alongside the tugboat, the bicycle, the television, and the helicopter. Brian Sneeden’s masterful translation captures the Delphic rhythms of Giannisi’s oracular poems, which rarely travel in a straight line but rather glide across multiple threads of time, like a loom interweaving strands of the mythological past. Homerica was the first book to introduce Giannisi’s voice to English-language readers and this second edition includes a new preface by Eleni Sikelianos and a translator’s note.

“Giannisi’s poetry is a wonderful combination of the classical and the underground avant-garde. Trained both in architecture and Ancient Greek, her poems tackle the problem of how to inhabit the spaces we live in — from the abandoned lot and the swimming pool to the page of the book. What a pleasure to have the full Homerica series in Brian Sneeden’s lyrical translation.” —KAREN VAN DYCK

“Sneeden is a meticulous translator and a poet in his own right. He brings Phoebe Giannisi's work to life with immediacy and conviction.” —EDMUND KEELEY

“unusually excellent new poetry […] from Greece, in [an] unusually excellent translation.” —ANNE CARSON, THE PARIS REVIEW

“Giannisi’s work glitters with such fragments: minimal, direct, and dense with loss.” —MAX SYDNEY SMITH, REVIEW 31

“A nuanced, clear set of poems that seamlessly articulate homeward journeys.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Giannisi intertwines the past with the present in order to experience the world around her anew.” —JESSICA GIGOT, NEW YORK TIMES