The Romaika (Romaica) Greek Dance

 

Interesting blog posting here:

https://sarantakos.wordpress.com/2021/01/06/romaika/

Greek Documentary Film (ERTFLIX) on Epirot Laments (Mirologia)

 

Watch on ERTFLIX (in Greek):

https://www.ertflix.gr/ellinika-docs/san-paramythi-moiroloi-toy-thrinoy/?fbclid=IwARC

Words on the table: my forthcoming book

 

This is the cover design for my next collection of poems which should be published by Colenso Books before September 2021. Cover design by Anthony Hirst.

It will include over two hundred poems. I'll be laying most of my cards on the table! I may keep a few up my sleeve.

Greek coffee: just run out!

 

I've finished my last packet. I ordered a new supply on the internet - rather expensive in the UK, but well worth it! I hope it's on its way.

At least I have a good briki in Dorset (a briki is a metal pot of tin-lined copper and/or brass for brewing traditional Greek (and neighbouring countries')  coffee varieties.

Caique Details, Kaiki Details, Corfu and Paxos

 

Abandoned Boats, etc., Corfu

Beowulf, the speech I shall never forget

I only had a small part in a production of Beowulf in Wadham College Hall during my first year at Oxford University. I wasn't an actor. We used the Burton Raffel translation. I was proud to deliver this speech (as translated by Burton Raffel)  and to commit it to memory. Never forgotten! 

Wadham College Hall made a good Herot (Heorot) - a suitable mead-hall.

My speech was the lament of the guardian of the treasure, the last survivor of his people...It still seems relevant.

The Movement for Greek Independence 1770-1821, Richard Clogg

 

THE MOVEMENT FOR GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1770-1821

EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY

RICHARD CLOGG

First published in 1976 and reprinted in 2021, on the two hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, this book contains a wide range of documents, many translated from the Greek or French, together with contemporaneous sources in English. The original text is accompanied by a supplementary bibliography.

A documentary collection of this kind retains its usefulness indefinitely. Although published forty-five years ago, Paschalis Kitromilides, as recently as 2013 in his Enlightenment and Revolution: the Making of Modern Greece (Harvard University Press), has written that ‘an anthology of primary sources by Richard Clogg has remained the only contribution that could serve as a substantive introduction to the subject.’

On its initial publication, other scholars welcomed the book:

‘... A work which is indispensable reading not only for those interested in the origins of the Greek War of Independence but also for those generally interested in the intellectual and cultural history of modern Greece’, Theofanis Stavrou, Balkan Studies 18 (1977)

‘A splendid collection’, John Petropulos, The American Historical Review 83 (1978)

In 1976, the book was published by Macmillan and priced at £10, the equivalent of £73 today.

It is now available as a paperback from Amazon at £15 plus postage.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Movement-Greek-Independence-1770-1821/dp/1527286223/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Movement+for+Greek+Independence%2C+Clogg&qid=1615039297&sr=8-1 238pp. ISBN 978-1-5272-8622-1

POTSHOTS 4

 

POTSHOTS 3, Dorset Coastal Towns, Photos from the Archive

 

Rory Allardice, Travel Writer and Musician

 

Website of Rory Allardice:

https://roryallardice.wixsite.com/rory

 Scottish Whistle in Geghard Monastery, Armenia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gne9HxJ9hh0 

Rory and Phil Allardice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61rW52t_fvc

 

POTSHOTS - a new series - photographs from my archives. POTSHOTS #1

 

New book: Words on the Table, Jim Potts

 

Words on the table (forthcoming book)

If I haven’t been blogging much recently, it’s because I am working hard on my new book, a collection of poems covering sixty years of my life. Many of the poems were inspired by experiences when working abroad. 

I expect that it will be available in May, 2021.

There are four sections, as suggested by Anthony Hirst, my editor and publisher of Colenso Books:

Birth, life and death

Songs and singers

The Written Word

Facing off the thought police

 

There are over 200 poems, of which 125 have never been published before.

 

Previous collections of my poems include:

 

Reading the signs, Colenso Books, 2020

Corfu Blues, Ars Interpres, 2006

"He has internalized vast knowledge of Greek culture... Much has been broadcast, published, spoken or sung before, in locales from Sydney to Memphis to Stockholm” - From a review of Corfu Blues (Jonathan Carr, Athens News, 22 June 2006).

“I discovered Jim’s first book, Corfu Blues, fourteen years ago; mildly surprised that it mostly contained poetry, essays and songs (and even an interview with film director Michalis Cacoyannis)—slyly, despite the title, about Epirus and Thessalonica, Australia and the Balkans; on the Dictatorship and terrorist bombings; folk clarinet/klarino and the scourge of tourism upon small places; Edward Lear, Saracatsan shepherds, the Orthodox Church. It showed him to be a wry participant and observer of life: ‘a new kind of nomad’, as he calls himself, ‘wanderer’, ‘self-exiled’. One may not be wide off the mark to address him as a modern-day transhumant, and a bearer of memory…"

(Demetris Dallas, at the Corfu launch of This spinning world, 30 September, 2019)

Article by Niki Marangou

Ὁ Φιλελεύθερος (O Phileleftheros),  27 July, 2006

NIKI MARANGOU: 

Ο ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΤΗΣ ΤΖΙΜ ΠΟΤΤΣ

Γνώρισα τον Τζιμ Ποττς σε ένα συνέδριο στους Δελφούς και μου έκαναν εντύπωση τα καλά ελληνικά του και η γνώσεις που είχε για την ελληνική λογοτεχνία. Μίλησε τότε για την Κύπρο του 1953-56, για τον Ντάρρελ, τον Σεφέρη, τον Κάρντιφ, για λογοτεχνία και προπαγάνδα στα δύσκολα εκείνα χρόνια του αγώνα της ΕΟΚΑ.

Αυτές τις μέρες κυκλοφόρησε ένα βιβλίο του με τίτλο CORFU BLUES, Ars Interpres Publications. Πρόκειται για μια συλλογή ποιημάτων, τραγουδιών, συνεντεύξεων, άρθρων που έχουν σχέση με την Ελλάδα, στην οποία έζησε πολλά χρόνια και στην οποία επέλεξε να κατοικήσει. Τα θέματα ποικίλουν, από τα ρεμπέτικα μέχρι τον Λόρδο Βύρωνα, από τους συνταγματάρχες μέχρι τα Ζαγόρια και την Κέρκυρα. Επιπλέον ασχολείται με τις αγγλοελληνικές σχέσεις, αμφισβητούμενες θέσεις, και ρίχνει νέο φως σε άγνωστες πτυχές της νεώτερης ιστορίας της Ελλάδας. Μου έκαναν εντύπωση τα ποιήματα του. Εχουν μια απλότητα και μια αμεσότητα που σπάνια συναντά πια κανείς στις μέρες μας, όπου συχνά βουλιάζει το νόημα του ποιήματος σε μια ακατάσχετη λογιοσύνη.

Niki Marangou, email 13/05/2006

!It’s a poetry that appeals to me, as it is real, straightforward and touches on history and the present at the same time. I was moved by the Byron Haiku. I have spent the last six months reading 'around Byron' and I felt this poem expresses the situation of his death better that anything I have so far read". 

You can follow my tweets at Jim Potts @DorsetWriter

A Celebration of the Life and Work of William Barnes, Barnes Night Special Programme

 

Tim Laycock and members of the William Barnes Society have produced a special programme in association with KeeP 106 radio celebrating Barnes’ life and featuring poetry and music in the Dorset dialect. 

Listen here:

www.williambarnessociety.org.uk/events/read/152/barnes-night-a-celebration-of-the-life-and-work-of-william-barnes/

The Destruction of Psara: Gyzis, Kalvos, Ψαρά, Ἐλευθερία ἤ Θάνατος

 

See the turbulent waves of the sea!

Nikolaos Gyzis (1842-1901), After the destruction of Psara

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Gysis_Nikolaos_After_the_destruction_of_Psara.jpg

From Andreas Kalvos' Ode to Psara

The island of Psara became involved in the Greek War of Independence in April, 1821.

Kalvos' Second Ode to Psara:

https://polysemi.di.ionio.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Lyrika-Second-Ode-To-Psara.pdf

About Andreas Kalvos (1792-1869):

https://polysemi.di.ionio.gr/index.php/2019/08/29/andreas-kalvos-2/