Not Knowing About Poetry J S

Roger Christofides discusses 'Neofitos Engleistos Speaks' (1953) by George Seferis, in connection with Shakespeare's play Othello. Roger is a Shakespeare scholar with a book on Othello that you can buy here - https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/R-M-Huddersfield-University-UK-Christofides/Othellos-Secret--The-Cyprus-Problem/18893065 . 

''Neofitos Engleistos Speaks' is not included in the major translations of Seferis' works.  A translation by John Stathatos (first printed in Labrys 8, 1983) is included below. You can find the Greek text here - https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/literature/tools/concordance/browse.html?cnd_id=1&text_id=3183 .



Neofitos Engleistos Speaks

…. as for king Isaac, he imprisoned him in the castle known as Marcappo. And as for his colleague Saladin, the rogue took no action against him, but instead sold the country to the Latins for twelve hundred measures of gold. Which was the cause of great lamentation, and as foretold, the smoke coming from the north became unbearable… (Neofitos the Monk, Concerning the Wrongs done to the Land of Cyprus)

Overbearing structures; Hilarion Famagusta Bufavento; mere backdrops

hardly how we used to conceive of that ‘Jesus Christ Triumphs’

once seen above the walls of the Imperial City, now pocked with weeds and hovels

and the great towers cast down like some defeated giant’s dice.

It had meant something else to us, this war for Christ’s faith

and for man’s soul cradled by Our Lady of Victories

her eyes holding the anguish of the Greeks like a mosaic,

the anguish of that sea at the approach of kindness.

What if they strut their Lusignan melodramas against crusader backdrops

while we gag on the smoke from northern torches.

Let them hack at each other, beating the wind like a galley before the storm.

You are welcome to Cyprus, Lords. Goats and monkeys!

Callie was an inspirational conversationalist when this podcast started during lockdown, thanks to their unforced enthusiasm, extraordinary depth of knowledge, and consistently perceptive interpretations. In this episode you will hear them discuss June Jordan's ‘Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet in Black English Translation’. The recording was made on June 24th, 2021. 



Don’t let me mess up partner happiness 

because the trouble 

start 

An’ I ain’ got the heart 

to deal! 

That won’t be real 

(about love) 

if I

(push come to shove) 

just punk 



Not hardly! Hey: 

Love do not cooperate 

with cop-out 

provocations: No! 



Storm come, storm go

Away

but love stay 

steady 

(if you ready or 

you not!) 

True love stay 

steady 

True love stay 

hot! 

Mau discusses Critchley and Langley's pamphlet These. Insuing. Sonnets (Crater Press, 2018) and Shakespeare's sonnets.  

Jack talks about Langley's poem 'Achilles' as found in his Complete Poems (Carcanet, 2015), alongside the memorial to Elizabeth Havers in the church of St Peter's in Stockerston (Leicestershire). 

Joey and Joel get together to talk about Prynne for the second time - this time looking at a section of his book *The Oval Window* (1983), starting 'At the onset of the single life', that responds to a speech by Lavatch from act 4 scene 5 of *All's Well That Ends Well*. 

This is Lavatch's speech: 

"I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire; and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in's court. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter: some that humble themselves may; but the many will be too chill and tender, and they'll be for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire." 

Leo and Joel talk about U. A. Fanthorpe's Poem 'What, In Our House?' (from her 1995 collection *Safe as Houses*), and a section of *Macbeth*.