Visiting and Vergina.

 

Our friends, Jean and Max, came from Canada to join a Medi cruise and shake off their winter snow. We were ken for them to sample Greek cuisine while they briefly stayed with us, so some meze awaited them with ouzo, of course. In the evening we munched on moussakas.  Our breakfasts together featured oat cakes and lemon curd, tsoureki or brioche, and the renowned local pie, bougatsa, both cheese and cream varieties.                                              

With only one full day here, we thought Vergina might be the best short trip to go on. Here we are on top of the hill – not such a short walk, unfortunately - at the site of the Palace of King Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.                                                              

Below we see what looks like folks emerging from a hole in a hill. This is known as the Great Tumulus at Aigai. It covers and protects the tombs found within which remain in situ.

                                                     

 In fact, when Rosie and I first visited Vergina – then under excavation by Professor Andronicus’ team – in 1978 all there was to see was a hole in the hill and some ladders – no access allowed, understandably. Imagine our surprise when, as we sipped our coffee in a nearby café, a little local lad came running in calling for coffee and ouzo for the team who had just made a discovery – with lots of gold. This was most likely to be Tomb II, the one generally associated with Philip II. We were almost as excited as he was - there, in the making of history.                                               

Within this tomb were found these golden greaves, or shin protectors. We see one of them is shorter than the other, one of the factors that had Andronicus believing that these belonged to the lame King Philip.                                                       

On the way home we drove through Thessaloniki city centre, a whistle-stop sighting of the port, The White Tower and Alexander the Great’s statue. We ended the day with the traditional gyros, pitta bread stuffed with roasted meat, chips, tomato, onion and tzatziki – nice!

                                                   

Next morning, the Boss was delighted to hear Max admire his vineyard and we went for a quiet walk, watching the guinea fowl bobbing among the carpets of daisies and poppies in the next field.

At a local restaurant we had lunch – good food, huge portions! Then all too soon it was time to wave our pals off at the airport.                                                      

It is grand to maintain friendships of yore – we spent hours chatting about people and events remembered - almost as of another lifetime! It is special, too, to share your living space with friends.                                                       

But they left two wee holes in our hearts and in our hearth. Haste ye back!

Poetry

 

A special event we attended recently was the annual Thessaloniki Book Fair. Our niece, Maria, had travelled from Sweden to promote her recently published poetry book. Here she is with her very proud uncle at Poetry Box, where a collection of poets – a pod? – discussed whose works had influenced them.

                                                  

  I’d have preferred to hear exactly what features they had introduced to their writing as a result of that influence. Otherwise, it could have, and did in places, not go far beyond name-dropping. There I go with my Lit Crit background! ☹

It does take courage to expose your inner self in text form and she’s obviously very excited about this new phase in her life. We wish Maria all the very best for her book sales and her career.

                                                            

Writing in any form, in my view, consists of several different phases. I have devised this procedure when encouraging my final year Lykeio students to produce text as part of their US university application.

1)      Frequently it is our emotional response to something, our caring, which impels us to write. We need to select a subject that fires and inspires us as it needs to be strong enough to sustain us through the process. Yet, these emotions need to be measured, contained, controlled, otherwise coherence and clarity can be lost.

2)      Then we move beyond the emotional to the cerebral, the conceptual phase: why do we feel this way? Why does it affect us? What do we learn from it? Try to see if there is something that will appeal to others. Remember we write to convey a personal perspective on a public platform. We’re not simply expressing our feelings, that would be personal, diary-writing. We need to find universality. From this initial brainstorming, we select key ideas, refining them, prioritizing them, ordering them linking to produce overall coherence.

3)      At the final stage we consider our language, our mode of expression. We do this with our audience and the effect we wish to engender in them firmly in our mind. Choose words that merge, match or contrast to give maximum effect on the reader. The language must be appropriate, expressive, exact.

Poetry is the most complex form of expression: its very nature is that it is condensed in meaning, concise, succinct. It is crafted, it has style, it is an art form.

It has particular characteristics such as rhyme, lines, metre - the rhythm structure of a verse or stanza.

 Let me give some examples of different poetic forms:

Haiku

A Japanese form originating in the 17^th century, it is condensed, often with references to nature, of 3-line stanzas, usually of a 5-7-5 syllable count.

 This is one I wrote on the demise of a beloved dog.

                                            

Dear Ivan has gone

All around us nature mourns

In sweet shades of mauve.

 

 We loved him dearly

 He brought sunshine to our lives

Kalo tou taxidi.       (This is a Greek traditional condolences wish: May he have a good journey)

  

 On a lighter note, I leave you this poem by Brian Bilston, quirky observer and word-craftsman! Enjoy!