The Poetry of Mon Repos Beach, Corfu

Mon Repos Beach (entry fee one Euro fifty cents) hasn't changed much since the 1960s (or maybe the 30s!). The sand certainly hasn't  been changed since then, nor the bar football game, to judge from the state it's in. But it's a convenient place for older Corfiots (and youngsters) to go for a good swim, followed by an ouzo and meze (or a soft drink). The wooden platform (a pier-like construction) is great for sun-bathing, and the steps at the far end lead to perfect water for swimming a few refreshing lengths. Nearer shore, it's a different story. Beware the sea-urchins! Avoid it at the beginning of the season, before the beach has been cleared of seaweed, rubbish, flotsam and jetsam.

It's an unlikely place, perhaps, for a literary discussion.

The book I'm reading (finally, in the fiftieth anniversary year of Camus' death) - Olivier Todd's biography of Albert Camus- elicited the significant observation from an acquaintance that Camus was a Scorpio. I was more taken by the fact that he compared the life of an artist/writer to that of a galley-slave, but now I can't find the reference.

Then I recognised Perikles Pangratis, one of the editors of Porphyras literary journal. It occurred to me that the association of Porphyras with Solomos' poem about the young British soldier (19 year-old Private William Mills) eaten by a shark in Corfu harbour, when swimming at dusk on 19 July 1847, and the association of Mon Repos with another fatal shark attack on 17 August 1951 (a sixteen year old Corfiot girl called Vanda Pierri, 29/12/1935-17/8/1951), might have put him off coming there to swim.

We had an interesting chat about Odysseus Elytis (another Scorpio!), and a symposium that Perikles is planning for this November, which he invited me to attend (if  I'm here, I may even present a paper).

We talked about Elytis' early poems (eg his 1940,- ie December 1939- collection Orientations, and my favourite Elytis poem "Anniversary", also incorrectly translated as "Commemoration").

I said I didn't find later Elytis that easy to understand, and preferred Ritsos as a poet. He insisted that Elytis was the greater poet. Translators find Ritsos easier.

When I got home, I dug out some volumes of Elytis' poems. I rediscovered that little Penguin Modern European Poets paperback from 1966, with translations by Keeley and Sherrard.

That must be one of the most worn and read paperbacks in my library: truly "a book that made a difference".

The same translations (in their earlier ""Six Poets of Modern Greece", 1960) may have helped to secure some Nobel Prizes (for Seferis and Elytis). It certainly introduced me to modern Greek poetry. The perfect 1960s book to take to an unchanged 1960s Corfu environment! I'm off to Mon Repos again in less than an hour, for an ouzo and a swim, in no particular order.

"I brought my life this far
To this spot which struggles
Forever near the sea...
Where is a man to go
Who is nothing other than a man..."

People assume that Elytis was a poet of the Aegean. But in 1937 he spent eight months as an army cadet at the National Military School for Reserve Officers in Corfu's Old Frourio (he even met Lawrence Durrell at Palaiokastritsa). Could Elytis have been referring to the beach at Mon Repos (which first opened in 1937), to Palaiokastritsa or to the Ionian Sea? Maybe...except that the poem was written before November 1935 (according to the poet himself in Anoichta Chartia), and was first published in Nea Grammata in the summer of 1936. But I do like to think that "Marina of the Rocks" might have been written in or inspired by Corfu.

Here's a short Elytis poem which mentions a shark:

And for those who can read Greek, here's another Elytis poem  and another, an Elytis adaptation of Sappho