The Wound by David Harsent gives an arresting and intriguing new version of the poems of loss and longing by the great modern Greek poet C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933). David Harsent has won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, the Griffin Prize and the Forward Prize. His other collections include Of Certain Angels, also by Dare-Gale Press.
‘David Harsent, in this well-chosen selection of Cavafy’s poems of loss and longing, brings across the clear-eyed melancholy of the Greek lines into exquisite English poems, with a poet’s finetuned ear: we taste the blood of a lover’s wound on a bandage lifted to the lips, imbibe the heavy wine of desire; in dim rooms we ponder “the tyranny of light.”’
A. E. Stallings
‘Versions of a great poet’s work by another great poet provide fascinating examples of exchange, cross-over, transposition, modulation, sensitive homage and daring challenge. In David Harsent’s Cavafy, erotic loss and memory are pin-point sharp, while their expression is taut and thrillingly condensed. In the “dark depth” of these lines we sense a Cavafy even closer to our own times, a voice lightly and convincingly interpreted, a vision to be pondered, savoured and enjoyed.’
John Kittmer
‘The many readers who have found their way into Yannis Ritsos’ poetry through David Harsent’s acclaimed recreations will now find kindred qualities in this sequence made out of Cavafy. The Greek poet’s obsession with love and loss has tended to come across somewhat insipidly in English versions: Harsent’s inject a new and salutary note of bleakness.’
David Ricks,
32 pages
ISBN: 9781915968111
