MPT The Antidote to Agony: Focus on the Poetry of Greece and Cyprus, guest edited by Jessica Sequeira, features 30 selections of poems translated into English by contemporary poets expanding the linguistic boundaries of Modern Greek, Bulgarian and Arvanitika, reflecting on migrant crossings in the Mediterranean, female friendship, the transcription of orality, imagined plagues, the encounters of bodies, the AIDS pandemic, and artistic ruin, among other themes. Greek poetry, as perhaps all poetry, opens the heart to the beyond, to the liminal condition. The truth is that the idea of a national focus will forever be complicated given that migrants also form part of the tradition of a region, both those entering and those leaving (which is why a poem into Greek is also included, by a Cypriot poet residing in Ireland).
The authors translated in the Focus are Angelos Sikelianos, Anna Griva, Argyris Chionis, Argyris Stavropoulos, Christodoulos Makris, Danae Siozou, Dimitra Kotoula, Efstathia P., Eftychia Panayiotou, Eleni Kefala, Ersi Sotiropoulos, George Le Nonce, Iana Boukova, Iliassa Sequin, Ioannis Tsirkas, Jazra Khaleed, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Katerina Iliopoulou, Konstantinos Loukopoulos, Krystalli Glyniadakis, Myrsini Ghana, Niki Chalkiadaki, Nikolas Koutsodontis, Panayotis Ioannidis, Peter Constantine, Phoebe Giannisi, Stamatis Polenakis, Suleyman Alayali-Tsialik, Thanos Gogos, Vassilis Kimoulis. Two introductory essays by Brian Sneeden and Kostya Tsolakis provide context.
In addition there are three non-Focus poem selections by Christine Bry from French, Manikkavacagar from Classical Tamil, and Roxana Crisólogo Correa from Peruvian Spanish
Cover artwork by Phoebe Giannisi