Kalliope X: Positions, Poetics, Politics of Difference

In this interview, Ergon features the perspectives of three poets and writers associated with the founding editorial collective of Kalliope X, an online, open access journal. They are Dimitris Troaditis, George Mouratidis, and Angela Costi.

Kalliope X Manifesto: “[we are] a collective of authors, poets, and educators energised by the work of culturally and linguistically diverse artists in Australia and beyond.

We work collectively to build a forum through which we can encourage, engage and exchange with writers of different diasporas and communities.

Through an eclectic approach to poetry, fiction, reviews, interviews, essays and criticism, and an open ear and eye to languages other than English, we work both to show what “Australia” looks, sounds and reads like, and to nurture a conversation with writers from around the world.

Kalliope X consists of Effie Carr, Angela Costi, Danny Klopovic, George Mouratidis, Dimitris Troaditis, David Roberts, Helena Spyrou, Georgia Kartas and Nick Hall.

Interview (Questions by Yiorgos Anagnostou)

Welcome to Ergon! Let us start with the title of the journal. What motivates it?

Dimitris: For me personally, all of us who are involved in this project are like a new Muse that comes to continue all that the older literary Muses left behind, to enrich it even on the basis of the individual experiences of each of us or even to redefine it by grafting it with all that we ourselves have experienced and continue to experience not only, in isolation, as workers of writing but also as acting political and social subjects.

George: The name of the journal was in part inspired by the debut novel of one of our fiction editors, Effie Carr, called Stamatia X. It’s about the renewal of identity, a rebirth of self, a reclamation, at once a nod to the self-determination of Malcolm X and the spelling of the Muse of dramatic/heroic poetry with a “K” as opposed to a “C” is to reclaim it from the mothballed clutches of Western European Renaissance, Neoclassical and Romantic discourse and artistic canon. The “X,” of course, marks the spot, marks the new and unknown, the elusive, something which cannot be defined and thus controlled. As the journal was started very much DIY and outside the dominant infrastructure of publishing or the Australian literary culture, as it were, we also want to reflect that grass roots, egalitarian, uncompromising Punk aesthetic and attitude that inspired us to get together and make something new not driven by careerism or profit.

Angela: I recall all six members of the first iteration of the editorial collective for the journal being in unanimous agreement about the name: Kalliope X. There was something irreverent about harnessing the power of the Chief of Muses and giving her an equally powerful symbol, the X, to stir the literary stew. The upper-case X can also be interpreted as the big kiss reserved for the love we all felt for creating a journal that carried and supported writing and poetry by and for migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, First Peoples, and so many others displaced within the Australian context.

Kalliope X “seeks to challenge the dominant literary imaginary” (DLI) in the country. Help us understand DLI in the context of Australian multiculturalism.

Dimitris: What we experience first and foremost for all of us involved in writing in this country is that what is coined as “Australian literature” continues to lack voices from both the immigrant community—that is, all those who write in a language other than English or who write in English but without engaging and without promoting the Anglo-Saxon narrative, where the immigrant element remains strong for them—and the First Nations, that is, indigenous writers.

In other words, there is still an imbalance favoring writers of Anglo-Celtic origins, leading to publishing and non-publishing decisions and experiences negating the value of writers that fall within the large spectrum of what is considered to be “multicultural writing” (that is, non-Anglo-Celtic origins).

George: Firstly, the dominant literary imaginary is, for the large part, monolingual and monocultural. “Multiculturalism,” as retro as it sounds, is something which exists and functions within the structures of those who like the idea of it more than the lived experience, because it means giving up their position of power, it means they have to deferin order to learn and grown, to step down, let somebody else have the mic, which, let’s be honest, they will never do completely as long as the society, culture and imaginary of literature (national or local) remain as they are. There is no doubt as to who dominates the discourse, artistically and politically, who controls the infrastructure—publishing, academic and cultural institutions, festivals, venues, panels etc. Diversity, inclusion etc. all presuppose a dominant culture, narrative, discourse, into which non-Anglo-Celtic artists are permitted to enter, and rarely on their own individual terms, only those dictated by the dominant culture, to serve them—perform your identity, educate them, alleviate their White bourgeois liberal guilt with what theywant from you: be diverse, but stay in this space. This focuses mostly on cultural identity and biography rather than aesthetic and poetic consideration and innovation: we’ll let you in if you write about your struggles and survival, your duality, your grandmother’s strong peasant hands kneading the dough. There is a default setting, a norm that is presumed and anything outside that is “outsider” or “marginal” (migrant/diasporic writing etc.). We are only marginal and minor if we recognize the authority of the dominant literary imaginary over our art. As Malcom X declared, “Who is heto be equal with?” There seems to be a one-size-fits (and should fit)-all approach by a literary imaginary which is first to talk about diversity, inclusion etc. and congratulate themselves, their open-mindedness and tolerance (See? We’re not racist, we published you) but baulks at the reality of what this will mean for them, their position from which they gatekeep and call the shots. The same goes for the monoculturalism of LGBTQI+ spaces and spaces of Disability discourse. We refuse to accept this imaginary and its infrastructure that perpetuates it. It bores us. We just wanted a space for writers and poets outside the dominant culture to be free to do their thing as and for themselves, totally freely.

A main aim of the journal is to “encourage, engage and exchange with writers of different diasporas and communities.” How does this challenge DLI and what is the value of this intervention?

Dimitris: The literary landscape is a mirror of general society. Therefore, migrant communities continue to be subjected or presented in misleading ways within mainstream and wider media spheres, it’s important to maintain the integrity and authenticity of these neglected stories. One vehicle that provides restitution for these voices, stories, and peoples, is Kalliope X.

Of course, while the debate around literary diversity has evolved over time and moved along different paths, what must be made clear is that the responsibility for addressing these issues does not rest solely with the authors. We need to look at what this means in the wider literary ecosystem, and not just in terms of what we see on the—now electronic—shelves of bookshops, annual awards lists or other venues and media.

George: I think we can only speak of this project’s “value” not as an evaluation, nor in capital terms, of course, but rather in terms of our aims, what we initially sought to achieve, and whether so far any of this has value.

The value, as it were, is to provide a choice, both to established and emerging writers and poets, to not compromise their aesthetics and poetics in order to find a place in a dominant culture which rarely accepts you on your terms, in your voice, language, sensibility. It is a space, a forum in which the DLI does not have a hand, has no authority, does not factor. For instance, languages other than English are not relegated to a translation or “ethnic radio” section, they are front and center. Also, the dialogue between artists from different diasporas and communities—between individual pieces themselves as well as quite literally us being in the same space physically, seeing and feeling one another’s presence—face, body—and talking, sharing with and learning from each other, just the pure joy of the freedom of that, which is what happened at our recent live fundraising gig “Kalliope X Speaks” where the response was overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic by poets and audience across many different diasporas. Just the fact that something like this is possible to put on and relatively easily and straightforward, keeps it grassroots and DIY and doesn’t bother with begging governments and patrons for funding with inevitable strings attached, but we just get on with the work. Kalliope X is an outgrowth of the alternative writers’ festival a few of us from the current collective put on in 2018—putting on panels and discussions within a festival setting that are already taking place between writers and poets across diasporas and communities largely occluded from participating in major writers’ festivals or panels—the literary infrastructure at large—on their terms. We called it the Greek Writers Festival with the theme “Diasporic Dialogues.” It perhaps comes as no surprise that the Greek community in Melbourne (both the official body of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria) and the diaspora at large (in all its various cultural bodies), not only didn’t understand what we wanted to do, but, sadly, did that thing that Greeks often do: if I can’t control something, I’ll dismiss or work against it. Ironically, in the audience among people from all different diasporas and communities, the Greeks were a minority. But no matter. The value of that event, and by extension Kalliope X (incidentally, the initial reaction by many from the Greek community upon the journal’s debut was largely critical and negative—i.e. “What has a Muslim novelist got to do with Greeks”? “Crazy stuff, right”?) is about “possibility.” We have six online issues and one chapbook and feel that we’re only getting started. We’re always looking to grow, to build something with strong roots that can last and that can be passed on, hence our choice to have a collective rather than hierarchical committee structure, build something egalitarian, open, participatory that is intergenerational and inter-diasporic.

Angela: The Kalliope X journal is proving to be an invaluable resource, from its first online issue to its sixth, it has actively engaged with two types of poetry not published enough in Australian-based journals, let alone within the global sphere: firstly, new translations in multiple languages, for example Nikos Nomikos who writes outstanding poetry in Greek being translated in English by George and in Mandarin by Helen Jia, and Mayu Kanamori working in two languages, Japanese and English, and secondly, poetry by poets that have been persecuted for their poetics/advocacy/humanity (that is, poets connected to, or supported by PEN), for example, Hidayet Ceylan, Pek-êng Koa and Nedim Türfent.

Do you embrace the term “diasporic poetry”? What does it mean to you?

Dimitris: Although there has been an occasional appetite for more “diverse” voices, however, both the literary sector in Australia remains stubbornly monocultural. In 2018, a survey of 349 people employed in the literary and publishing sector found that only 6% of respondents identified a writer with a non-Anglo-Saxon surname and only one respondent (0.3%) identified an Indigenous writer. This shows that there are still serious and unresolved issues in all areas. The lack of culturally sensitive author-publisher or any other stakeholder relationships is a direct result of this evidence. Not to mention that there are issues of class, gender, etc., which enter into this whole process, but when this relationship is cross-cultural, there is an extreme risk of misunderstanding, appropriation and censorship.

George: I personally don’t really deploy this term, for no particular reason other than it comes across as rather monolithic and can really only be understood in its relation to or against a dominant (indeed monolithic) national imaginary and literature. As long as “Australian poetry” does not really accommodate the complexities, nuances, ambivalences and contradiction of diasporic life (which, of course, is not monolithic, develops and changes organically, especially when comparing the work of writers of the diaspora, whichever one, from generation to generation etc.). Am I a diasporic poet or an Australian poet? Can I be both? I’ve been living in Australia most of my life, so is my writing still “outsider art”? Individual diasporas, of course, vary from one another in a number of ways—temporality, genealogy, trauma, history, literary/artistic traditions. It’s the similarities and the differences which interest us in this project, exploring without defining. After all, who but the dominant culture needs things to be defined, labelled, filed away, and controlled.

Angela: In 2002, I was given the bilingual poetry collection by Antigone Kefala, published by Owl Publishing, and found myself immersed in the liminal spaces created by Kefala. There was a poem that spoke to me and to many others about how the diaspora inhabit a country colonized by the British and dominated by a particular Anglo-driven culture. The poem is titled, Barbecue, and its final stanza captures the failed endeavors of migration and settlement:

The streets deserted
only we in the bald yard,
with the gum tree
fanning itself nervously,
eating raw meat laced
with black flies
drinking the parched wind
and making polite conversation
while the light poured on us
sizzling.

An ominous atmosphere permeates in Kefala’s poems about living in Australia. Note that she was born in Romania of Greek parents, fled Romania due to the Russian occupation, and finally arrived in Australia in 1969 (after being documented as “war refugees” in Greece and New Zealand). Even within the immense diversity of poetry by the diaspora of Australia, there seems to be a sharing of “unbelonging” which is interesting to Kalliope X, as the journal has published quite a number of poets who speak about this “unbelonging.”

How do you understand the significance of poetry in society?

Dimitris: Everyone may give a different answer to this question. From my point of view and because I am also involved in political projects, I do not see poetry and political action as inseparable. One complements the other. I am not saying that poetry is a revolutionary tool or the only answer to every problem. But it is one of my own tools in my daily participation in political and social events, and in my endeavors towards a socially conscious person.¹

George: At the risk of rolling out a platitude, poetry is a broad church. It can’t change society or “change the world” etc., beautiful as such a world would be, but it can illuminate, expose, challenge society and the sorcerers who beleaguer our existential sanity. It can build communities of mutual recognition, validation and support, can be ecstatic or melancholy or sick or bolshie, and and and – there’s no one way. Its significance in society is my significance in society, very subjective, intensely personal and private, almost a religious sanctuary in practice, like religion, and then unleashed like a litany or vision or whatever. For me, and I can only speak for myself, poetry is how I navigate and negotiate the world within and around me, like a probe or divining wand as I move through it all, see what’s happening, the transmission of consciousness and sensorium at large and in flux, what I feel I must try and save from death. Poetry is all about death, so get it down, now. Make your words matter, at the very least, to yourself. Kerouac said the poet wear the laurel crown in the moment of composition, not afterwards. In that moment, pushing those words around, you’re free. If you write for kudos, for rose petals to be showered upon you as you come down the street, it’s all-over red rover. Other times it feels sort of Sisyphean, trying to animate a world, someone, something long gone, to catch the light of a star which, of course, has already died. Chasing ghosts, extracting stones from your heart and head as you live in and move through this mess.

Angela: Poetry is sustenance for me, for us all, and therefore for society. There are a vast majority of us who are readers, thinkers and givers, who have spent time with a verse or lyric or line from a poem that has nourished our existence. The system from which skyscrapers flourish tries to push poetry to the margins and uses only an economic lens to assess its worth. But we know poetry engages with our senses and when we commit a line or two, or an entire poem to memory, this process heals, replenishes and influences our existence.

How did your personal connection with poetry come about? Perhaps share with us a key moment or two in your life that intensified this connection?

Dimitris: I have been involved in literature, and poetry in particular, since my school days, and through many “capacities”—if they can be called that—such as reader, observer, organiser of poetry readings here in Melbourne, participant in various such events, publications and schemes, but above all writer, and I have been fortunate enough to publish collections several years later, and more to come.

George: I started writing back in school, like most people, I guess, but things didn’t seem to click until I was 15, staying up all night listening to old records (I’m still a Sixties freak), devouring Ritsos and the Surrealists and the Beats, old movies, seeing the poetry of their images and orality, just exploring my own mind and voice. It was very ritualistic, pure freedom. Later and comparing that world to the poetry canon I was being taught at university. I kept writing as I studied, rarely submitting anywhere, because it wasn’t this thing of successor making it, but just this ongoing exploration in isolation, and quite happy. I gradually started publishing and sort of fell in to running poetry readings where I engaged with a poetry community and started reading. All this public and publishing and poetry scene stuff came quite late, too late to really impact the practice I had developed over decades. Unlike Dimitris and Angela, I didn’t read my work in public until my mid-30s, crazy, right? Punk and grunge were also definitely a big deal for me, that made me feel that I could just go ahead and do something, make something meaningful without accepting and internalizing the dominant culture’s way of doing it. There was one week I remember when I was maybe 19 when I read Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit, Bob Dylan’s Tarantula and listened to Ritsos’ Το Καπνισμένο Τσουκάλιalbum on repeat all within days of each other, that was huge, like holy shit, everything I’ve ever known about poetic language has just exploded!

Angela: I remember sitting in a lounge-chair in the back yard. It was sunny. A shy breeze. On my lap was my notebook. In my left hand was my pen. I began to write what I knew was a poem. I had no overwhelming emotion triggering me. I was involved with documenting an encounter I had with my Yiayia, focusing on our dialogue, the rhythm of the Cypriot Greek words and how they interacted with the English. This was 1993, in my 20s, influenced by a raft of international, long-dead poets, such as Yiannis Ritsos and Adrienne Rich, and closer to home Π.Ο. and Judith Rodriguez. That poem was my first published poem in 1994, spurring an obsession to creatively document what was missing in institutionalized archives: the oral stories and voices of my Cypriot ancestors.

In what language(s) do you write poetry? What motivates your choices?

Dimitris: I write in Greek first and foremost because in that language I express myself better and more effectively. I believe that I could write in English after more than 30 years of living in an English-speaking country for the most part, but even if I did it again in Greek, I would go back, without being haunted by some kind of chauvinistic syndrome regarding the language. Still, I believe I am now one of the few people in Melbourne who writes poetry in Greek.

George: For the most part I write in English, though Greek isn’t too far away from the inner ear, the mind-tongue. I only spoke in Greek until I was 5 or 6, so it’s a major part of my linguistic negotiation of the world, my aesthetics and poetics. I am fluent in both, but English is the main medium. Especially when you’re skimming across the surface of the mind, really opening up the sails of the brain, the Greek comes bubbling up, sometimes mingling with the English, sometimes entirely in Greek. The importance of idiomatic language and idiosyncrasy in my poetry inevitably engages deeply with Greek. Its appearance is always surprising.

Angela: I grew up with three languages swirling above my head and inspiring my ears: Cypriot dialect, Greek and English. Both sets of grandparents and my parents were from Cyprus, which was colonized by the British from 1925-1960, and so these are the languages they drew on to survive the colonial powers. Still, I was born in Sydney, Australia, with English being the dominant language at all of my schools. Most of my poems are in English, but often there’s a weave of Cypriot or Greek language, particularly when I am writing about my heritage or kin.

What kind of publication venues are available to you in Australia and, if applicable, in Greece?

Dimitris: I believe that if my poems are translated into English, they might have a chance of being published in Australian literary journals, or Anthologies, or even an English-language collection. My poems have been published in Greek in two literary journals published here in expatriate circles, but that was occasional, in the sense that I myself chose not to send my work for publication in those journals because they did not cover me in every respect. On the other hand, because I have my own poetry website where I publish poems by other poets, both Greek and non-Greek, I am well known in the Greek world and I have been asked for my work by other similar ventures. I have also published nine of my own collections and a tenth collection with another person from Greek publishers (Στοχαστής, Οδός Πανός, Κύμα).

George: All publications in Australia are open to me, I feel. It just depends on whether having my work appear in them or not means anything, I guess. If I must be a particular version of myself, recalibrate my aesthetics, in order to be accepted by journal x or magazine y, then why bother? At the same time, I don’t exactly fall over myself to send my poetry to the big or hip publications, or whatever’s going—if they ask, I give, not in this waiting-to-be-asked way, but more the action of inaction. Maybe it’s a Gen X slacker kind of thing, who knows. If it means something, cool, if not, forget it: Unusual Work or Collective Effort Press mean something to me; Meanjin or Sydney Review of Booksdo not. Ditto competitions and awards—meh. The only value the big fish have, really, means that more people know you exist and might want to read your work. I guess it’s that conundrum of staying with and indie press and having next to zero distribution, just leg your copies from bookshop to bookshop (very punk) or going with a big publisher you know will have big distribution but feels like a fit of a Faustian bargain–thinking about your brand and how to market yourself, curating your socials etc., ugh, that’s the kiss of death, man, at least to me. As for publishing avenues in Greece, I haven’t explored that at all to be honest. It’s a different scene and sensibility over there, more for-real, at least that’s how it seems to me. Might send something one day. Should probably get my act together and send something.

Angela: For the vast majority of poets, including poets born/based in Australia of Hellenic background, it’s challenging to find a publisher for your manuscripts and to get individual poems published anywhere in the world, including Greece.

Since 1994, I have considered myself a working poet and so this has meant early morning reading and writing of poetry and then late night searching for a suitable publishing home, submitting, and then trying to get some sleep. At one point, this process led to fatigue, and so I stopped submitting for a number of years, from 2010 up to 2018. I read vastly, wrote as much as I could and refrained from sending to publications. But then I felt half-alive, as the communal and collective aspect of poetry was missing. Since 2019, I have endeavored to reinstate a poet’s existence, which means submitting to local and international journals, despite the rejections. I value being a part of various, diverse poetry communities, including the Kalliope X collective.

There are certain journals that are more open to my type of poetry than others. Recently, Panoply,an online literary zine, with international editors, published my poem, The Daughter honors her Greek Orthodox Father. This poem was struggling to find a home in journals that didn’t want to deal with languages other than English. It was heartening to receive this enthusiastic response from Jeff Santosuosso, the editor of Panoply: “Thank you for sending us “The Daughter honors ... .” We love it and would like to publish it in the next issue of Panoplyzine. It's fine poetry, deftly alternating language for effect. And I'm half-Greek! (My mother was raised Orthodox.)”²

Kalliope X features Greek poetry in its original along with its translation (in English and other languages, including Chinese). What drives this decision?

Dimitris: No community is monolithic or static and should not remain so. Everyone and everything, we are and are something fluid, something that is perpetually moving, something that is subject to constant changes and shifts. So we as a literary group, but not only as such, have already chosen to expel the ghosts of the past, to try to break down the walls of our parochial ghetto, to help each other in order to maintain our particular voice so that we can survive, and, by extension, to create a literature from below, of the grassroots, that will combat our chronic social and cultural displacement, especially as artists, which, unwittingly and perhaps through our own fault, isolates and alienates us, ultimately leading to our gradual erasure from living and performing artistic life.

George: We wanted to move away from yet more explorations of identity—which, as I mentioned above, sometimes feels like diasporic poet’s only in Australian literary culture—and focus more on aesthetics, poetics, and language, to have a dialogue and let these works talk to one another by having them next to each other. This is much more interesting to me: how things such as history, trauma (e.g. How does a Greek Australian poet engage aesthetically with writing the Civil War compared to a Vietnamese Australian writing the American War?–this is the idea), what does voice, language, poetics do to accommodate individual and/or as compared to community/diaspora. The Greek community in Australia, just like the Australian literary culture, is very insular, an island, almost incestuous. I get how in the case of diasporic communities this insularity was an issue of survival, and this is crucial. But we felt the time had come to use our varied Hellenic identities as a base to open things up, look out and engage with other diasporas, communities, languages. Most journals tuck away languages other than English, but we wanted them to feature prominently, stand equally beside one another, whether it’s Greek, Mandarin, Ukrainian or Kurdish. This is what Australian society and culture reallysounds like, at least in our various experiences, so we wanted to underscore that.

Would you share with us one of your poems, or an excerpt, and offer a reflection about it?

Dimitris Troaditis

ΟΙ ΤΟΠΟΙ ΜΟΥ

I
Οι τόποι µου
βρίσκουν καταφύγιο
σε ρηµαγµένα κτίρια
σε αποπνικτικές ατμόσφαιρες
σε φωτιές που θεριεύουν

II
οι τόποι µου
κυλιούνται πρηνηδόν
σε µάτια χαμένα
βλέµµατα κατακερµατισµένα
σε κοινούς κατατρεγμούς
και ακρωτηριασμούς σωμάτων

III
οι τόποι µου
λυγίζουν απ’ την απόγνωση
σε βοµβαρδισµένες γειτονιές
μορφές µε βαθουλωμένα µάτια
από την πείνα
και τις αγρύπνιες

IV
οι τόποι µου
έπαψαν να είναι διατηρητέοι
γιατί απώλεσαν παντελώς
το παρελθόν τους
αρρώστησαν οι θάλασσές τους
και νόθευσαν τις φορεσιές τους

V
οι τόποι µου
δεν έχουν βιολιά
ούτε χορούς της φωτιάς
µόνο ένα σκίρτημα αποµίµησης
λικνισμάτων της πεντάρας

VI
οι τόποι µου
αναμνήσεις από σιδερένια κρεβάτια
σε θαλάμους στρατοπέδων
και χαρακιές στα μπράτσα
τοίχοι µε υγρασία
πρόσωπο ένα µε τους βράχους
της πατριδογνωσίας

VII
οι τόποι µου
μέρη όπου κανείς
δεν λυπάται
πολιτείες που γκρεμίστηκαν
εκ των έσω
κι έμειναν πένθιμες
απόμακρες όχθες

VIII
οι τόποι µου
σε παράξενη ηρεμία
σε χειμερία νάρκη διαρκείας
σαν να ρίχνουν τα παιδιά τους
στα καψαλισμένα
φοινικόδεντρα
όταν σφίγγει ο κλοιός
των µεταλλαγµένων αναγκών

IX
οι τόποι µου
μένουν ακίνητοι πίσω
από πολυβολεία
και πολεμίστρες
πίσω από πυρπολημένα σύδεντρα
µόνοι σ’ εγκαταλειµµένες προκυμαίες
όξινες βροχές
σωρούς αποβλήτων
αναμονές ταξιδιών

X
οι τόποι µου
προϊστορικά αγάλματα
λήθης και ασημαντότητας
σε λαιµητόµους στραµµένες
σε χαλιναγωγημένα ξέφωτα
διαλύονται
εξοστρακίζονται
αιμάτινα κοµµατάκια
σε κάθε δάπεδο

ΧΙ
οι τόποι µου
πύργοι μεσαιωνικοί
µε πολεμίστρες και δόρατα
µε βίγλες και κρυψώνες
όπου κρεμούν άδικα
τους αντιφρονούντες
όταν μιλούν µε ρίγος
και σύγκορμα πάθη

XII
οι τόποι µου
ρευστοί σαν το φως
των κεριών
σε ανταύγειες
σε αβέβαια τραγούδια
και συνθήματα πολυκαιρισμένα

XIII
οι τόποι µου
εγκάρσιες αντηχήσεις
µε παρωχημένους
κώδικες
σε πύργους ανελέητους
διασχίζουν πένθιμα νερά
και καρμανιόλες
σε πλήρη ανάπτυξη

ΧΙV
οι τόποι µου
λικνίζονται έντρομοι
μπροστά σε ελάχιστα φεγγάρια
χαμένοι σε ερείπια
µε θειάφι απομόνωσης
σε σωρούς σκουπιδιών
όπου ανεμίζουν πύρρειες
αιµατοβαµµένες σημαίες

XV
οι τόποι µου
μετέωροι μέσα
στην ολική κατάρρευση
του χρόνου
µουλιασµένοι μέσα
στην κίτρινη βροχή
που τους σκέπασε
ως άλλο νεκροσάβανο
κι οι κάτοικοί τους
έμειναν
χωρίς µνήµη.

[From “Με μια κόκκινη ανάταση,” εκδ. Στοχαστής, Αθήνα 2016.]

ΟΙ ΠΡΟΓΟΝΟΙ ΜΟΥ

Οι πρόγονοί μου
αποκρυπτογραφημένα ονόματα
άγνωστα και οδυνηρά
σε κελιά καιρών καταισχύνης
σε ταξίδια με φανταστικές άκατους.

Οι πρόγονοί μου καταδύονταν
σε Αλκυονίδες μέρες
με τους δείκτες τους να δονούνται
με μια μοναξιά καταβυθισμένη
σε αμυδρά φώτα
με κιβωτούς αδιόρατες
με μια διέγερση ψιθύρων
κι αποστάγματα αρρώστειας.

Οι πρόγονοί μου αμαξηλάτες
σε παρόδους σκοτεινές
σε ουρανούς χωρίς φώτα
αφήνοντας παραλλαγμένες
ανάσες τα πρωινά
πυροβολώντας άστοχα.

Οι πρόγονοί μου
έφυγαν τελεσίδικα
μένοντας νεκροί στις ράγες
εκεί που άλλοι πασχίζουν
να τους σκεπάσουν.

[From “Λοξές ματιές,” εκδ. Στοχαστής, Αθήνα 2018.]

***

George Mouratidis

all the young dudes

all the young dudes—
four, forsure loaded college kids,
athletic gear, straight from protein gym flex,
striding down faraday, verge of crotch-grab,
one trips another in white cap in jest—
all as white as it gets,
grammar school adam’s-apple’d put-on deep voice
big fat words thud as they turn
down cardigan towards prolly clyde
for more jugbeer flex talk in shorts
legs hairless & pale blue as
candied chickpeas in big bins
in old delis on high st
(w/ baby pink yellow white)
next to pistachios & salt-crusted pumpkin seeds,
bulging fruit & veg plastic bags of ‘em
in boxy vinyl shopping carts brown & navy green
white plastic wheels on polished concrete
next to 10ltr drums of olive oil,
open tilted baskets of delicious oily salty cod
—ρένγκα—best w/ φασολάδα (bean soup) & olives
in steamfog winter kitchen saturday early afternoon
school hols, green eye of blinking 50s radio
thru brownlit warm of outside who cares gloom—
a buck a handful white paper bag of roasted pumpkin seeds
at soccer next day, same old dude at all the matches selling,
also κουλούρια (sesame-crusted breadrings)
threaded on a long branch slung over his shoulder (my favourite)—
& the hands of the dudes go up & bloom out—NA!—
at the ref cursing his clan to five generations,
old olympic village in heidelberg (bell st?)
w/ overgrown gravel athletics track from ’56 games,
red slop on runners in the rain lovingly cleaned up
when back home sunday eve death-wait, wait—
no school tmrw, hols, nothing to do—
walk to lalor shops, down melaleuca down hill
cross loose-plank bridge over thomo creek
(darebin? don’t know it’s real name) & up again
past orange-brick back wall of
WILL YOU LIVE TO SEE THE DAWN? sprayed
w/ rushed black rays of scribbled yellow sun thru red-swirl clouds,
to library on may rd, old cement-sheet portable w/ kick-holes,
borrow same book (“discovering the ancient past”
w/ shirtless gleaming aztec in plaits holding a wooden mallet on cover
staring thru me to the future)
then cake box (still there, shit now)
for tifle cup to share on bus
(either that or crinkle-cut chips
in paper newprint cup from take-away),
old breadroll chunks strewn
on non-slip steel steps of redstripe white bus
that are always slippery, kids & grannies
always stacking & swearing at the driver
as though he was the one who made it rain—
freezing. streetlight orange.
paper piss-yellow,
can’t see the line anymore

This piece was part of a writing exercise I set for a creative writing class, to go out into the street and sketch with words in situ. It’s pretty self-explanatory, really: I was leaning under a streetlamp and the image of pale blue caused a rupture in time, zap back to that world now gone.

***

Angela Costi

The Peasant’s Pitch

when Zorba has the sea at his back, staring at his future Boss through the glass door of the Piraeus café, in the novel, Zorba The Greek

Zorba is accustomed to pressing his face
against glass
heating it with the grunt of his organs
the grin of his mouth
the sniff of his sixty or so years
stalking the seas
of the Mediterranean for a comfort
he sees inside the café   smug with the smoke
of sea captains and sailors
and one stranger he spies sitting alone
with two companions   a book and a pipe
puffing perfect holes in the air
while reading verses reserved for men who count time
by chaining a clock to their vest
Zorba knows this man judges his smudges so
shines the glass to show his shape
tall and lean   muscle and bone   shovel and blade
this Boss stares back with interest
Zorba will fire his eyes   saliva his tongue
work his brain to master a story
for this Boss
cannot refuse

Nickos Kazantzakis wrote a remarkable novel, Zorba The Greek.I can read it again and again for its prose and lyrical qualities. The point of view is of that of the wealthy, young, intellectual man who is sitting in the café as he first sees Zorba, but what of Zorba’s point of view, as he spies his future boss for the first time? Zorba resonated with so many of the first-generation migrants who left their homelands in Greece, the Balkans, and the wider Mediterranean, due to financial struggles.

What are some of the challenges and delights running Kalliope X?

Dimitris: At Kalliope X we do not believe that we have to lock the door behind us so that no one else can follow us. That is, to think only of ourselves, in this case only of our community, without caring about any other. We believe that we should always leave the door open so that we are in this together. By looking into our different identities, histories, approaches as writers and artists, Kalliope X looks out and opens the doors and windows of this edifice in which we now live and work as voices, diasporas, people, and wants to get out of this monocultural and monolingual meat-machine that sucks the creative life out of organic diversity, inclusion and intersectionality in literature, reduces them to husks of loose news and a mire of dancing symbolic death and eventual silence, both in Australia and elsewhere. Kalliope X offers an OPEN FREE SPACE for culturally and linguistically diverse writers to breathe, think and speak and create for each other, where we can seek and find ourselves in each other's words.

George: Once of the biggest challenges we’ve faced, which is quite typical of an indie project, is financial. That is to say, one key value we all agreed on when we started this project is that we want to pay contributors. Everybody loves art, but not everyone likes to pay for it. Writers and poets cannot merely be “paid in exposure”. Of course, everyone in the Kalliope X collective, editors, admin, web designers, are all working for no money. It’s a labour of love and joy, and a lot of fun, never dull, always challenging. But we want to go on paying our contributors and feel that grassroots fundraising is the way we’re going now.

Angela: A joy is always reading through each issue after the tireless work to get it published. We, as a collective, are stoked by the idiosyncratic, authentic and original voices we have published.

Is there an aspect or two associated with your project about which you would like to add in the conversation?

George: May a thousand Kalliope X’s bloom and all dominant literary cultures wither away into irrelevance.

Angela: The journal is moving into its fifth year, and we have a new combination of collective members with extra skills and gifts, which has enabled the chapbook/zine to blossom. There is talk of more in person and online literary events, and another zine with a continuation of the next online issue, which will be our seventh.

January 25, 2025

Dr. George Mouratidis is co-founded and Director of Kalliope X as well as one of its poetry editors. He is a Fellow in Literary Studies at the University of Melbourne where he is completing a monograph Becoming Beat, teaches American literature occasionally, runs the Beat and Counterculture reading group for researchers. His debut collection, Angel Frankenstein was published in 2018 by Soul Bay Press.

Angela Costi is one of the earlier members of the collective, working as poetry editor. The author of six poetry collections. Her most recent is The Heart of the Advocate, Liquid Amber Press, 2025. Her chapbook, Adversarial Practice, Cordite Poetry Review, was commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Prize. Her creative works have been widely published, broadcast, translated and awarded prizes, including the University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize 2024.

Dimitris Troaditis is a poet, translator and co-founder and one of the poetry editors of KalliopeX. He is extensively published in Greece and Australia in numerous literary journals, websites and anthologies. He has published nine collections of poetry and one with a friend. He has also published three social history books. He runs tokoskino.me

Notes

1. Δες επίσης, Δημήτρης Τρωαδίτης. 2023. «Για μια ποίηση που να συνομιλεί με την κοινωνία: Οι περιπτώσεις των tokoskino και Kalliope X – και όχι μόνο». Ποιητική Κρίση: Η δημόσια λειτουργία της νέας ελληνικής ποίησης του 21^ου αιώνα. Επιμ. Βασίλης Λαμπρόπουλος. Δεκέμβριος 29.

2. See also, Angela Costi’s Failing Site published in Ergon.