ANIS RINGS
Back side of words and other verses
ed.. Fixation, page 160

We often read about the “power of words” in a poem, and I bet that before it takes root in our minds, this phrase is recycled into the wastebasket of banality. Thus, I am happy to recommend Anis Ring’s powerful words as a rare case where the trivial is exceptionally justified, and this is easily accepted by the ordinary reader and not exclusively by the fanatic of poetry. The power that her short poems exude is palpable, one even wonders if there is a violent energy in them, a shock wave that shakes her letter. Each poem is angry, rebellious, rebellious, desperate, like a small child, but at the same time stubbornly set to flourish in this very unsuitable state.

Some elements of the biography of the poetess, which, together with aspects of her poetics, are briefly and clearly stated in the preface by the translator of the book, Maria Papadima, are consistent with the feeling that the poems evoke. Kolz, now 95, from Luxembourg, began speaking German and switched to French in adulthood when she prematurely lost her husband “due to the torture he suffered at the hands of the Nazis.” As a French-speaking poet, she has received great recognition, and in 2018 she was awarded the important Goncourt de Poésy Prize. Reading the 101 poems of the Greek edition, compiled from nine collections of poetry from 1966 to 2017, one finds a clear uniformity of style and subject matter. Kolts still seems to be infatuated with her youthful obsessions, while she doesn’t seem to be experimenting with new poetic ways. These are short, dry, abrupt poems, insincere in relation to life and to the very poetry they preach. Their themes are – explicitly or at least explicitly – decay and death, an external reality that involves mental states, words that arise and become poetry.

A special place, at least in the anthology under discussion, is occupied by poems that deal with the relationship with the mother from the point of view of the daughter. I counted four poems related to the mother, but there are also poems related to birth, which I think belong to the same atmosphere. The mother of poetry is more like an evil stepmother pursuing the poetic ego. Thus, it is not surprising that the same poetic ego faces existence with courage, but also with great despair. From the poems about the mother, I single out the title “I always live / inside / the mother / / This is the place / in which I get lost / like in a ruined castle / / Where my thoughts pursue / her / stormy air currents / crossing the walls / wide open to storms ” . The manner of the Ring and the existential orientation are also characteristic: sharp speech, vivid imagery, a sense of impasse and condemnation. Completing the book, which is accompanied by an interesting visual addition with paintings by Stefanos Rokos, i.e. with the Ring talking to a visual work in our language, as she does in her original work (the source of information is the incarnation of Nikos Zombolas), still receives more light and power than you might expect. Thus, it seems that poetry, even when it comes to harsh and bleak subjects, is a consolation and medicine: if it is real poetry, then it is effective poetry.