Austerity Measures: The New Greek Poetry

The very best of the remarkable new poetry to emerge from Greece in crisis - an essential anthology

Since the crisis hit in 2008, we have heard much about Greece’s economic travails. This year, the world watched as Syriza dramatically took a stand against austerity - and, after months of attrition, finally capitulated. But this is not the whole story. As Karen Van Dyck shows in this anthology of the very best contemporary Greek poetry - much of it made available here for the first time in outstanding English translation by such trusted translators as A.E. Stallings - the last decade has also seen a remarkable flowering of new creative talent. These are poems concerned with the personal and the political; with the small pleasures of the suburban garden and the viciousness of streetfights; with bodies, love, myth, migration and economic crisis. Together, they form a unique window onto the lived experience of Greek society now.