Le poète
Anestis Evangelou
Il est monté jusqu’au plus haut sommet
Comme sa voix, oiseau blanc dans le ciel
Au pied des monts la foule immense qui fourmille
Elle écoute la voix qui s’élève toujours
Le cercle se resserre Ils tiennent des bâtons
Brandissent des couteaux des pierres, se rapprochent
On entend des clameurs Tuez-le
Commencent à tomber dru les premières pierres
Au soleil luisent les couteaux
Il le sait c’est sa fin
Mais sa voix,
Oiseau blanc, volait haut dessus leurs têtes
Hors d’atteinte des cris de haine et des couteaux.
Traduction Magali Duru,
d’après l’original grec et la traduction anglaise de M. Byron Raizis
Anestis Evangelou (1937-1994), was born in Thessaloniki. He made his literary debut in 1960 with a collection of poems, Description of Eviction. He subsequently published another seven volumes of verse: Breathing Method (1966), Bloodletting ’66-70 (1971), Poems 1956-70 (1974), Interval (1976), Hai Kai (1978), Denuding (1979) The Visit and Other Poems (1987), and The Snow and Devastation. In 1988 he published his collected poetry in The Poems: 1956-1986. He also published a work of fiction, The Hotel and the House (1981, revised and enlarged in 1985), a collection of literary reviews, Reading and Writing (1981), and an essay, Nine Interpretations of Poetry and Poetics (1990). His work has been translated into many languages.
