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The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy: A New Translation

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The second line from Constantine Cavafy's "Ithaka," as translated by Aliki Barnstone, perfectly expresses the feeling one has when reading her fine new translation of Cavafy's collected poems; one wants the journey to last, to be slow, thoughtful, recursive, if possible, neverending. In Cavafy's poetic imagination, the history of thousands of years emerges in perfectly realized vignettes, with ironies teased out of time into timeless applicability. Reading Cavafy is the pleasure of a lifetime.

I first encountered Cavafy among Robert Lowell's Imitations, published in 1961, and quickly sought out Keeley and Sherrard's Six Poets of Modern Greece--coincidentally, published the same year--and subsequently, when it became available, their joint translation of Cavafy's selected poems) to read more of Cavafy. Later, I found Rae Dalven's translation, as well. As Aliki Barnstone generously affirms in her acknowledgments, all these poets have done fine work in making available to the English-only reader as much of Cavafy's poetry as can be carried over into English. None has done this better than Ms. Barnstone.

The clarity and grace of Aliki Barnstone's translations, and her sensitivity to degrees of emphasis and (I choose to believe) subtleties of tone seem to me to contribute to the great success of these translations. Her versions of the more familiar poems ("When the Watchman Saw the Light," "Waiting for the Barbarians," "The Gods Abandon Antony" and others) are distinctive and yet comforting in their reassurance that we have experienced well before, may experience more deeply now. Ms. Barnstone, a fine poet in her own right, brings poetic authority (and a family of supportive poets, as well)to this work, and all readers must be grateful.

This volume, arranged chronologically, offers very useful historical and contextual notes for many of the poems, as well as a thoughtful but not overbearing introduction. I would recommend this volume to anyone who cares for modern poetry, but especially for the indispensable poems of Cavafy.