DIMITRA KOTOULA - THE SLOW HORIZON THAT BREATHES
Dimitra Kotoula
The Slow Horizon That Breathes
Translated from Greek by
MARIA NAZOS
Introduction by
A.E. STALLINGS
$20.00
Bilingual Edition
168 pages
October 11, 2023
ISBN 978-1-954218-16-1
Distributed by Asterism (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
BIOS
DIMITRA KOTOULA is the author of three poetry collections and the recipient of the prestigious Chartis prize. Her poems have been translated into 13 languages. Since 2000, she is Louise Glück’s primary translator into Greek, and also translates the work of Jorie Graham and Sharon Olds. Her poems have been translated into 13 languages. Translations of her work by Maria Nazos have been published in U.S. journals including The Columbia Review, The Mid-American Review, The Denver Quarterly, Anomaly/Drunken Boat, The Blue Lyra, World Literature Today, New Poetry in Translation, and Copper Nickel.
MARIA NAZOS’ poetry, translations, and essays are published in The New Yorker, Copper Nickel, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, and Mid-American Review. She is the author of A Hymn That Meanders (Wising Up Press) and the chapbook Still Life (Dancing Girl Press). For ten years, she has translated the work of Greek poet Dimitra Kotoula. She has received scholarships and fellowships from the University of Nebraska, Vermont Studio Center, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
A.E. STALLINGS’ poetry collections include Like (2018), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Olives (2012), which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; Hapax (2006); and Archaic Smile (1999), winner of the Richard Wilbur Award and finalist for both the Yale Younger Poets Series and the Walt Whitman Award. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry anthologies and she is a frequent contributor to Poetry and the Times Literary Supplement. Stallings’s verse translation of The Nature of Things by Lucretius was published by Penguin Classics in 2007. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. She is director of the Poetry Center in Athens, Greece.
Dimitra Kotoula
The Slow Horizon That Breathes
Translated from Greek by
MARIA NAZOS
Introduction by
A.E. STALLINGS
In her debut English-language collection, contemporary Greek poet Dimitra Kotoula takes on contemporary Greek society in challenging lyrical forms.
In The Slow Horizon that Breathes, a selection from her first three books, published between 2004–2022, Kotoula—a poet born after the military Junta—engages modern Greek struggles, including troubled relationships, the financial crisis, motherhood, and the act of writing. Translated by Maria Nazos in close collaboration with the author, and introduced by A.E. Stallings, this volume presents to English readers Kotoula’s masterful transformation of private demons into a public resonance.
“Kotoula subtly and masterfully transforms … private demons into a public resonance.” —A.E. Stallings
“Writing in dialogue with the twentieth-century poets of ancient myth (George Seferis and Angelos Sikelianos among them), Dimitra Kotoula brings fresh language and a feminine touch to familiar themes.” —Karen Van Dyck
“These are poems that shimmer as they transform tragic, ironic histories and alienating religious doctrines into lyrical lines of immediate physical and visceral intensity. Kotoula’s voice embraces an autonomous selfhood based on the female bodily experience which like seasonal landscapes can be both breathtaking and discordant: ‘I want you to feel this blue / color of loneliness and uncertainty / and nothing else / while the air and earth inflame / a sudden blooming.’ Maria Nazos brings her mastery as poet and translator to render Kotoula’s irrepressible spirit on the page. We can be grateful for this collaboration for turning the rubble of contemporary life into something beautiful and lasting.” —Dzvinia Orlowsky
BIOS
DIMITRA KOTOULA is the author of three poetry collections and the recipient of the prestigious Chartis prize. Her poems have been translated into 13 languages. Since 2000, she is Louise Glück’s primary translator into Greek, and also translates the work of Jorie Graham and Sharon Olds. Her poems have been translated into 13 languages. Translations of her work by Maria Nazos have been published in U.S. journals including The Columbia Review, The Mid-American Review, The Denver Quarterly, Anomaly/Drunken Boat, The Blue Lyra, World Literature Today, New Poetry in Translation, and Copper Nickel.
MARIA NAZOS’ poetry, translations, and essays are published in The New Yorker, Copper Nickel, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, and Mid-American Review. She is the author of A Hymn That Meanders (Wising Up Press) and the chapbook Still Life (Dancing Girl Press). For ten years, she has translated the work of Greek poet Dimitra Kotoula. She has received scholarships and fellowships from the University of Nebraska, Vermont Studio Center, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
A.E. STALLINGS’ poetry collections include Like (2018), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Olives (2012), which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; Hapax (2006); and Archaic Smile (1999), winner of the Richard Wilbur Award and finalist for both the Yale Younger Poets Series and the Walt Whitman Award. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry anthologies and she is a frequent contributor to Poetry and the Times Literary Supplement. Stallings’s verse translation of The Nature of Things by Lucretius was published by Penguin Classics in 2007. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. She is director of the Poetry Center in Athens, Greece.
PRESS
Reviewed by Ani Gjika for World LIterature Today
Maria Nazos interviewed for Greek News Agenda
Long-listed for the 2024 Runciman Award
Book of the Month Selection for Greek News Agenda
Excerpt & Introduction by A.E. Stallings at Poetry Society of America
Bilingual Edition
168 pages
October 11, 2023
ISBN 978-1-954218-16-1
Distributed by Small Press Distribution (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
