Transreading Greek Poetry
My big fat Greek poem: explore the language, culture, and fascinations of this storied literature.
Here you find cloud-stepping poets,
poets with an aptitude for heaven.
– ‘Lipiu’ by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Translated by Karen Van Dyck.
In this course we will explore and celebrate contemporary Greek poetry, as a source of inspiration for our own writing; not just through traditional translation, but also through all kinds of creative experimentation.
This course extends an invitation to get to grips with what’s being written in Greece today and will encompass a range of poets from the Greek poetry scene. In particular, we’ll explore the work of two remarkable Greek women: Kiki Dimoula and Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke – who both, sadly, died in 2020, after prolific poetry careers – alongside the writing of Constantine P Cavafy, Yiannis Ritsos, Giorgos Seferis, and Odysseas Elitis.
Over 5 sessions, we will consider the language, culture, and fascinations that shaped these poets’ artistic sensibilities and writing practices – Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, for example, had a special tie to the island of Aeyina, which she explores in ‘The Scattered Papers of Penelope’ – and use these as a starting point for you to explore your own areas of fascination. In reading this work, we’ll think about not only the subject matter of the poems, and their authors’ contexts, intentions, and concerns, but also the processes through which the poems were written. We will also use Greek poems – provided in Greek with their translations into English alongside – as catalysts for our own new writing.
By the end of the course, students will produce a creative portfolio of poetry, inspired by the best in contemporary Greek literature and, we hope, have developed a fascination for, and love of, Greek poetry that extends into the future. Students do not need any language other than English to follow this course.
5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 9 Oct 2024. No live chats. Suitable for UK & International students.
Concessions & Accessibility
To apply for a concessionary rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]; conditions of eligibility are detailed here. If you have any questions, wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, or require any form of adjustment to access our courses, please email [email protected]. For more information visit our Online Courses page.
Image credit: @dialex
About Sally Michaelson 
View Profile
Sally Michaelson is a retired conference interpreter living in Brussels. She completed an online MA in Creative Writing at MMU (poetry route) in 2018. Her poems have been published in literary magazines such as The High Window, London Grip, Algebra of Owls, The Lake, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Lighthouse, The Seventh Quarry, Squawk Back, The Jewish Literary Journal, The Bangor Literary Journal, Squawk Back, and Lilith. Her debut collection The Boycott was published by The High Window in April 2021. She was a simultaneous interpreter from Modern Greek at the EU and is passionate about Greek poetry.
"Being able to study high quality courses from a distance and with flexibility is invaluable to older poets, poets in full time work, poets with accessibility needs, poets who may feel excluded from the main poetry circuits. "
Latinx Futurisms: Diaspora, Borderlines, & Cannibal Translations
‘Much have I travelled’: The Poem as Journey
‘what has been excavated and interred here’: Transreading Robert Macfarlane’s Underland