Kiki
Dimoula ΚΙΚΗ
ΔΗΜΟΥΛΑ
Born January 6,
1931, Athens Died 22 February
2020, Athens
Section
12, Number 114
Entry by guest writer Tania Theodorou
No
end ever arrives empty-handed
The wealth
of poetry and the unique oeuvre Kiki Dimoula left behind after her death in
2020 is proof of that. Although one of the most famous of contemporary Greek poets,
she nevertheless described herself as “stubbornly ordinary”.
I remember my first encounter with her poetry. I
was already in my thirties - so not that long ago - on a summer visit
back to Greece. My father came home with a thin book of poems and placed it
next to my coffee cup. It was her collection We Moved Next Door.
(Μεταφερθήκαμε παραπλεύρως (2007).
Once I opened that slim volume and began reading, I
became a devotee.
Reading her is almost a physical sensation, - like
entering a portal into a secret world. Her words unlock thoughts and emotions
yet, at the same time, render them somehow indistinguishable from each other.
Necessity, fear, memory, the night: in her poetic construct, they all struggle
for meaning, jostling with each other to find their place. And yet, at the
same time, her poetry is remarkably self-contained. She is meticulous, avoiding
anything redundant. There
are no loose ends.
Poet Pantelis Boucalas in The Fruit of Lyrical
Melancholy, had this to say about her characteristic style:
We may
naively believe that her work is limited to the euphoria that springs from her
miraculous wordplays, her almost demonic capacity for miracles, but that would
lead us to try to limit her work to form only.
It is true that her poetry often turns grammar into
a subversive element which confounds at first but ultimately assists in a
transubstantiating process.
For me, she belongs to that category of poets which
includes Cavafy, Stephen Spender or Emily Dickinson - poets who lived outwardly
‘normal’ lives and yet whose inner sensibilities were palpable and unique. It’s
like a superpower that comes from suppressing something, - a certain
specificity or self-sufficiency in expression.
Kiki Dimoula said: “Only what is futile is
self-sufficient”. And that is part of the magic: her constant probing and
evocation of the futility that characterizes our finitude.
Her Life
Basiliki (Kiki) Radou (Βασιλική Ράδου) was born in
Athens on June 6, 1931 to a family with Peloponnesian roots. After she
completed her education, she worked for The Bank of Greece and remained there
for 25 years until she retired in 1974.
Her first poetry collection was published in 1952
when she was 21 one years old.
In 1952, she married fellow poet Athos Dimoulas (Άθως Δημουλάς: 1921-1986), who had published his first poems only
the year before. Athos was a mechanical engineer who had studied in Athens,
Belgium, England, and France.
Although different ages, they began their careers
as poets together. They would have two children, Dimitri and Elsi.
The
Young Matron
After his death, his loss weighed heavily and this is
reflected in many of her poems. One that made a big impression on me is
“The Caution”.
The
Caution
(my own translation)
When you are setting the table
before taking your seat
check thoroughly
the chair across from you
if it’s sturdy, or does it
creak?
Perhaps the notches became loose,
perhaps the joints have worn out
or the frame is enfeebled by
a worm
because the person who doesn't sit
there
gets heavier by the day.
For eight years she was editor of Kyklos, the literary magazine published by the bank, where much of her own writing was featured.
She won several national literary prizes for her
poetry throughout the years and in 2001, she was given an award by the Academy
of Athens for her life’s work. She was only the third woman to receive this
honour. She became a member of the Academy in 2002. In 2009 she received the European prize for
literature, and her work was translated into French, English, Spanish, Polish,
Italian and several other languages.
Many of her ardent fans believe that she should
have been Greece’s third Nobel laureate.
She died on February 2020 at the age of 88. When
late in life, she was asked by an interviewer why she still smoked so heavily,
her reply was, because life is so brief.
Her
Burial in the First Cemetery:
Athenians
traditionally say goodbye to their cultural heroes with praise as well as
regret. Her funeral was no exception.
Her
Poetry
The setting of her poems is predominantly an urban
landscape; the main backdrop with few exceptions is Athens, an Athens that
forms the edifice for time and loss and oblivion to hang from and to reveal an
emotional condition.
In her poems you can find patterns, returning
themes; Rain sets the mood. It’s a symbol for loss and melancholy, but it also
seems to herald a catharsis of sorts.
Woman
Suspended
(translation
by Tania and Linda Theodorou)
It’s raining.
A woman stands out in the rain
alone, adrift on a balcony.
And the rain is like compassion
and that woman is like a fissure in the
glassy rain.
Her gaze traverses the rain,
heavy, tormented footsteps
filling the rainy street. She
watches...
and keeps changing her position
as if something larger than herself,
something insurmountable, has
established itself
in front of what she is looking at.
She slants her body, taking on the
angle of the rain
- like a thick
raindrop -
but the insurmountable is always there
in front of her.
And the rain is like remorse.
She watches...
She throws her hands outside of the
railing,
catches raindrops.
the need for something tangible is
clear.
She watches...
And suddenly,
as if someone had gestured “no”
she moves - to go inside.
Inside where?
Suspended, exposed in the rain
and alone
adrift on a rudderless balcony.
Other recurrent themes include photography that
tricks both time and memory and the ever-present sea, that most Greek of all
things. As for God: she’s quite angry with God, directing taunts and
accusations in equal measure. And then there is death, her favourite. She once
referred to herself as a porter of melancholy.
She was brilliant with words, obviously, and had a
miraculous way of transforming simplicity into complexity:
If
anything needs love it is reality, for it is reality that lacks it the most - I
doubt that it was ever loved.
When asked to describe what a poem is, she said:
Imagine hearing birdsong in a desert. As improbable
as a bird suspended over a desert might be, I am obliged to build a tree for it
to perch on.
Below,
are a few branches of that ‘golden bough’:
Easter in the Oven
Easter in the Oven
The
goat kept on bleating hoarsely.
I
angrily opened the oven; what’s all the noise I asked?
The
guests can hear you.
Your
oven’s not hot, it bleated.
Do
something; otherwise your raw cruelty
will
go hungry, and at a festive time too.
I
put my hand inside. It was true.
The
head, the legs, the neck,
the
grass, the pasture, the crags,
the
slaughter - all cold.
Desktop Calendar
(My own translation)
Midnight.
Your cause of death was an instantaneous “today”.
My beloved day.
You have displayed an exemplary death;
you did not even endeavour to prolong it
by pleading
or by dedicating poems to it
neither with entreaties about the youthful love
that was in your charge, and you would leave behind.
I look at you now as you lie on your back
on the blank smooth page of the almanac
You lay your head on the pillow inscribed with your
monogram
January 18th, two thousand and ten.
How peaceful you look, how youthful,
that rosy colour caused by the ascent towards your
demise still on your cheeks.
One can see nothing of the horrors you went
through
crossing the eons to get here.
You look like an adolescent untouched love
now prostrate;
may the page of the coming day that covers you be
light.
Obscenity
(The Canonical is irreverent)
Sunset have you lost your mind?
Take off that red frock
Shame
You can’t wear that to your funeral.
I am adding the titles of some of her longer poems
which are so worth looking up:
I have gone through
Unexpectations
Dust
Black tie
The Grave
Section
12, Number 114
Take the long walk from the cemetery entrance to pay homage to this wonderful
woman.
The Map
Footnotes
Relevant Sources
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