Poetry
Ursa Minor
Takis Papatsonis · 1944
Synopsis
A composition in free verse in which the liturgy and calendar of the Roman Church mingle with the readings of a man who read everything, between the traditions of East and West. Faith is a climate rather than a doctrine, meditation on human things takes up as much room as prayer, and the verse moves at the pace of prose.
Context
Three collections in nearly thirty years, and this is the only one that is not a selection: the author, severe with himself, left in the reviews many pieces that he never collected. The title is in Latin on the Greek cover, the publisher adding only its transliteration and a note of one additional poem. The book appeared with Íkaros in 1944, under the Occupation. Kimon Friar and Kostas Myrsiades translated it into English in 1988; there is no French edition.
Who it is for
Poems in free verse and in a mixed language, which no French version renders; English has had them since 1988. It is best to know a little of the Latin liturgy and its feasts.
Prizes and reception
It is the only book of poems its author composed rather than selected; literary histories place him in the generation of 1930 on its strength, without managing to keep him there.