Greek School

George Kalogeris has published four books of poetry. Greek School marks the culmination of his Hellenic-American trilogy, following Guide to Greece and Winthropos (winner of the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize). His poems and translations have been anthologized in Joining Music with Reason, chosen by Christopher Ricks.

"The poems in Greek School are Janus faced: they look outward to the childhood of the poet and his immigrant family, and inward to the literature of classical antiquity, which unobtrusively informs nearly every page of this superb collection. A jar of olives, the curly rubber cord of a landline phone, and other everyday objects are the time machines by which personal and public worlds of grief and celebration are brought into unforgettable relation."-Alan Shapiro "Admirers of George Kalogeris know in advance we'll be transfixed by the tenderness and humanity, the deep wisdom and quiet humor of his poems. We're also prepared to be shocked (though not surprised) by their sudden detonations of violence and grief. In this extraordinary new book, we get stories of Greek history and family history (inseparable), interwoven with beguiling, elegiac lessons in the Greek language and poems about the history-and necessity-of art, from Homer and Sappho to Melina Mercouri. Greek School is an essential addition to a happily increasing, indispensable body of work."-Lloyd Schwartz Praise for Guide to Greece "George Kalogeris's excellent poems show him to be a part of that amazing efflorescence of modern Greek poets from Cavafy onward, but he is ours, too, contemporary and American. Taken together, his poems are a demonstration of an attitude toward life and letters that is attractive, engaging, and impressively humane."-David R. Slavitt Praise for Winthropos "Like Orpheus, Kalogeris too would restore to life, if only within the space of each single poem, those he has loved who have died but whom he makes live again in memory . . . an art shaped by fluid dramatic situations and natural dialogue, by metrical control so exquisitely refined that we hardly notice it, by an extraordinary concreteness and a love of the everyday, by humor, and by wit that fuses time and place, myth with reality."-Helaine L. Smith