Description
The genesis of these poems is John’s lifelong study of the history and culture of Greece, allied with his connections since the early 1960s with Greek people in Wellington, as well as visits he’s made to Greece and associated countries over the years. In particular, a recent trip around the Mediterranean both inspired new poems and also motivated him to unearth and rework poems from earlier decades.
THE MYTH OF MYTHS
The heartbeat of a myth is
felt in Wellington as much
as in Santorini, Larissa or
squeezing Piraeus. And this
myth, carried in smouldering
silence through the body’s
private channels to the firing
brain, is not that of Theseus
or the ghosts of the Lion Gate,
not Diakos or Kolokotronis
but Hellas itself, still shaping
the neurons of the diaspora
and touching cells of those
bonded as adoptive children.
