NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

A beautiful, solid, 310pp of very short poems - mostly two a page in parallel text Greek and shakily spelt English. Sensuous, Sapphic and feminine, I found this utterly fascinating, with that tantalising combination of a half-understood language and an inevitably inadequate, though mellifluous, translation. The power of Greek poetry history comes across, with strong references to Sappho's writings and fragmentary epigrammatic rhythms - a sort of feminist Greek Anthology.

A collection of very romantic poetry from this beautiful Greek poetess whose rich use of language writhes with a passion she can only have inherited from the spirit of ancient Sibyl of Delphi herself. She is a credit to her nation and worthy of all the acclaim she's so far received.

Produced here in both languages, reading her delightful poems in translation makes me wish I were able to read them in their original Greek, preferably while seated in comfort on a sun-warmed seat, cooling drink to hand, overlooking the blue Aegean; the thought - warming, the poems - heart-warming.

A dual-language edition with English on the right hand pages facing the original Greek on the left. Short lyrics, tinged with a Dylan Thomasish surrealism, though sometimes the strangeness is a product of the translation (‘fairy-tail’ for instance) and the rather poor proof-reading.

The style can become irritating - there's a lot of straining after effect, and certain words - ‘chimera’ for instance - crop up constantly. A lot of the poems tail off into ellipses rather than finish properly.

The book opens with a translation from Sappho, ALONE:

	The moon and the Pleads
	Have set by now, it's passed
	Midnight
	and I lay alone in my bed.

	On the clouds a wingless victory
	With erotic serenades of passion;
	Tarantellas, nights of eschutcheons
	In the symphonic music of stars
	You hear torrents of rhapsody
	On the moon, to embroider
	Out of golden threads
	Your petrified herons...