[11/14/24] Seferis, George / Kellogg, Jennifer R. (tr.): Book of Exercises II

World Poetry, paperback

Publication Date: November 14, 2024

Translated by Jennifer R. Kellogg

Publisher Marketing: 

The first English translation of legendary Greek poet George Seferis's lesser-known political, satiric, and erotic poetry as well as previously unseen material from his diaries. Poet, diplomat, and literary critic George Seferis (1900-1971) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963. He is known to most readers as a myth-loving modernist. Book of Exercises II — a multi-genre volume, containing political, satiric, erotic, panegyric, and calligraphic poems drawn from the poet's diaries between 1931 to 1971 — opens up a hitherto unknown Seferis to English-language readers, offering a closer look at his creative process, opinions, and personal life.

"The starkly prophetic voice of George Seferis is unmistakable in this valuable gathering of poems, many of which are here appearing in English for the first time. Especially in his poems from the 1940's and 1950's, Seferis could be speaking to our moment-and in their dark wisdom, the poems seem to know it. Three quarters of a century have only strengthened the power of this vision and this voice." —RACHEL HADAS

"With poems that run the gamut from playful to tragic, erotic to satirical, mythic to crude and humorous, this collection never ceases to show off surprising new facets of a poet we thought we already knew. Jennifer Kellogg's masterful translation is inspired in the most literal sense of the word: it breathes new life into these remarkable texts, sets them dancing before our eyes, so that we can discover Seferis's verse all over again, as if for the very first time." —KAREEM JAMES ABU-ZEID

"This is the hitherto hidden Seferis in English encounters, now deploying all those sharp tools: humor and irony, with the ribald and the ridiculous on display alongside pensive beauty and joy. In these stellar translations of one of modern Greece’s most vital voices, we are afforded a fuller sense of this bedrock poet’s range.” —ELENI SIKELIANOS