This month with great pleasure we welcome a man of art, a poet and novelist, Mr. Yiorgos Douatzis.

Below is sited a small piece about the poet written by George Ikaros Bampasakis. Moreover, we quote the interview of Yiorgos Douatzis to the director of our radio station, as well as a sample of one of his works that particularly moved us.

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“His written speech “stretches to embrace feeling, to initiate the emotion of making a sweet miniature of  an illusionary universe, a creation that would be worth living in.”

“Yiorgos Douatzis exercises thought into stripping,” as Karouzos said, “laying the poem bare. Make-up, ornaments, jewellery, removed, disposed of; they are just waste to leave the word naked, the word naked of meaning, naked meanings. It does not want to hide behind being poetical, saturated and imponderable. It does not want to hide embarrassed and afraid of the thrills and chills, but instead, to allow them to shine, the voices, the singing". "A poetry which is not derived from the history of poetry as much as from the history of life.” “The words are not used to find other words but to move people who are living and pulsating with life." "Thank you poet for turning us back increasingly to a simplicity that we always miss!”

- Yiorgos Ikaros Bampasakis -

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Mr. Yiorgos Douatzis was born in Athens. He studied economics at the High Industrial School of Thessaloniki and sociology at the 8th University of Paris. A journalist since 1974, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations as a reporter, columnist, political analyst and director. He has taught in Schools of Journalism and has been a speaker at conferences for the media.

He has been writing regularly since adolescence and made his first appearance in 1971, in the poetic anthology of  the “New Greek Generation” of the editions Agkyra. His second appearance, in performance of ballet, based on the poem "Conflicting Symbols and Progress to Light” in May 1973, G. Tsagaris music and choreography Elli Paraskeva.

The below works follow:

1. Written - 1976.
2. Local Government - 1986.
3. The Small Ones – 1996.
4. Compilation Tassos Leibaditis – 1997.
5. A Letter to Ten – 2001.
6. A Letter to Ten – The Undelivered – 2003. 
7. Libations – 2004. 
8. The Small Ones 2 - 2004
9. The Red Shoes – 2004.
10. The Button – 2004.
11. The Reason for the Plans (collective work, drawings of Michael Amarandos) – 2006.
12. Do Not Leave Mr. Efheti – 2008.
13. Chat With The Night Visitor – 2008

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Small

(Small poetical compositions by Yiorgos Douatzis)
(selected by Radio Art, recorded and played during the program)

1. When you reach silence you will know.
2. Sing in the winter, which made you feel the Spring.
3. Only to reflect is selfishness. To reflect and to give, is a duty.
4. A purpose, is not such a small ca
5. Idols. Frankincense their human vanity
6. Illusion of climbing. Running backwards on an escalator.
7. Memory helps to go deep into the future.
8. False modesty. More vulgar than its lack.
9. Perspective creates dreams. And it is exquisite to share them.
10. I exist. They said they love me.
11. Somewhere in here. In this microcosm lies happiness.
12. Start to dream before the dawn and leave the window closed.
13. Smart. The lining in a jacket with a hole in the place of the heart.
14. As much as sadness burdens you, wash your face and put on your best clothes and go out into the light. Through their mud, you will emerge spotless. Come out to the people, and mainly to the light.
15. Bureaucrats justifying their existence with a signature, draw holes in the tent of the poet.
16. The first step of freedom was when he did not want to prove anything to himself. The second, when he did not want to prove anything to anyone.
17. In love with life and so full, that death will not rob him of anything. 
18. There are pairs where one destroys the other half, despite the fact that it destroys the original pair. 
19. The only clothing that warms our winters, are moments, which is not news to anyone.
20. Pedestals make images and we do not know what to put on them. Some wrap them with plastic flags. 
21. Why is she to blame that you load her with everything you wanted her to have?
22. Be afraid of distances. They beautify the past and its heroes.
23. Anonymity is price.
24. He scratched his own face, changing masks to self sustain.
25. Sailors smile, because they experienced loneliness among people and loved the one they were most afraid of. The sea.

Interview of Mr Yiorgos Douatzis to Mr Lambros Mitropoulos

• Dear Mr. Douatzis, it is a great honour and pleasure for us to welcome you to Radio Art.

The pleasure is all mine for this invitation by Radio Art, your welcoming electronic home, this oasis of civilization that we so much need in the difficult times that we live in. I wish you courage and to maintain your faith in the principals and values of aesthetics and life.

• I am aware that poetry is your great love. But what is poetry?

It’s a religion without gods and only faith. The scaffold for the building of the noblest system of values. The blessing to be able to fly with a pencil and a piece of paper, to get drunk without alcohol. The tough and ruthless lover. A baton that did never wear out, moist with a thousand human souls. The greatest, the deepest, the great till death passion. I could fill many pages with definitions of poetry but I would never determine its dimensions.

• Which is the role of the poet today?

The constant reminding of humanity, of perishability and of mortality. The three “keys” that make us sensible, humble and offering.

• What is a poem for you?

Paper descendants. The transfusion of the heart’s burden in white papers. The great breath to keep on route. Singing. Life giving as water, oxygen, blood, fire, earth and sky. As love great and unappeased.

• Can poetry fill in for the unlived, as Kiki Dimoula has said?

I think that poetry cannot fill in. It pays magically and plunges you in the core of life.

• Can poetry lead us to happiness?

If happiness is the tough fatigue, the straight glance towards the truth that once you embrace it, it may self-contradict, the constant giving and the true love, another way to reach it but through Poetry, there is not.

• What else could lead us to happiness?

Happiness is a totally personal concept. For me the combination of holiness (far away from religions), bravery and courageousness could lead to happiness.

• Which are the modern prisons of man?

His structures that allegedly free him from the modern prisons.

• You write in your novel “Do Not Leave Mr. Efheti”, “the shadows never leave us, they accompany us day and night, in the light and in the dark they accompany us”. Can hope take us away from them?

Hope can lead us behind some of the shadows, where there is certainly light, otherwise they would not exist. But why turn away from them? They may be shadows of the present, of the past or of the future. Certainly shadows of a path, of a struggle, of a life. And I do not know a shadow that did not teach me great lessons. Let’s dance with them. We may find the right steps and probably our most fitting pair.

• Is art a subjective issue, even though an adequate equipment of objective criteria may exist?

In art and in life, subjectivity exists by default. Both as creator and as a receiver of the work of art, you will act subjectively. As far as the objective criteria are concerned, they are also subjectively defined. In view of a great work of art, where, how and why should you think all the issues of subjectivity or not of the artist or of the art? I recon you prefer to let yourself free in the subjective and greedy sipping of the aesthetic pleasure.

• Is it feasible to distinguish truth from utility and to walk only by the truth?

If we talk for the synapse of the truth with the route of man towards his “interest”, namely utility, then things can get hard. But I believe that those people, who have the will, are able to distinguish up to an important level their own truth. The limits in the end are clear. I deeply believe that the true creators do not have such dilemmas. For them the seeking of the each time next truth is the only way. And the utility for them is useless. It kills the essence of things.

• Power contains violence and the concept of subordination, as you write in your novel “Do not go Mr. Efxeti”. Is it possible for a social system to exist without the enacting of power?

No. I am afraid that the enacting of power by the counter-power supporters could be harsher than the one enacted by those who rule.
Each human being in order for itself to participate in a group submits itself willingly to the power of someone else. Either way, the Poet by nature cannot breathe and is always implicitly against any form of power. Otherwise, he would have definitely gone astray.

• Since the beginning of time, we are viewers of the dominance of the most powerful ones and of the subordination of the weak. Would you like to comment on that?

You obviously talk of the influence of the rich and of the owners of the scientific and technological knowledge, which move the mechanisms of power. But when talking of the power of the true creators, the spiritual people, that produce and offer their work to the world, who may we then take for as weak? The choices define our view of things. How can the alleged powerful ones engulf Homerus, Archilochos, Seferis, Elitis, Leivaditis… How?

• Do you agree that philosophy today cannot serve anything and anybody, as Axelos says?

The least that philosophy can do, is to exercise our mind. The most that it can do is to lead us to the courage to accept the fluidity of each find and to build a salutary, absolutely personal system of values. I reckon that the saying of our great Axelos, whom I deeply respect, shows his bitterness for the world of today.

• Are you optimistic for the future?

I am an optimist by nature. Since man has succeeded to control his animal instincts that make him in-human, may be life can become better. And then again I think how much worse it could be. I think that since you decide to live, you should be optimistic in order for you to fight.

• Do you think of the time going by?

I think of that in relevance to all the things that I have not done yet. And all these are unfortunately too many. Do you think that I try to find excuses to extend my life? (laughter) On the one side I think that I have no time and on the other side I think that no one asked me except for myself to achieve something.

• You have said in a previous interview that you are not afraid of death. Can we reconcile with it? How?

I do not know if accepting reality is considered to be reconciliation. I have accepted that death is an act of life. But the last one. Can you imagine a life without ending? Reproduction would have to stop. We would have a life without birth, creation. I believe that without death we would live the absolute deadlock. Namely a worse death.

• Should poets seek for a safer roof? Perhaps recognition?

The safety (of a roof?) requires recourse, part standstill. Recognition is a big bait, the creaky, unstable roof. Humbleness – and when there is recognition - is the tool that connects the authentic poetic work with the poet’s life. When you conquer humbleness, I believe that no roof is needed. The dome of the highest art is more than enough.

• If your life became a movie, how would you imagine the end to be?

To end with my birth. And to show a flying paper in the wind with the lyrics I wrote when I was eight years old. But who cares about our individual life, when there is real life …

• I believe that your answers will become fresh air and blow joy, optimism and happiness to the hearts of our listeners. I am personally very touched by yours words and I would like to keep with me always your words “Hope can lead us behind some of the shadows, where there is certainly light, otherwise they wouldn’t exist … they are shadows of a path, a struggle, a life …let’s dance with them”.
  Let us accompanied the dance with our shadows with music of Astor Piazzola and Rene Aubry, which we vested abstracts from your exquisite book “The red shoes”, which will be played by Radio Art during its program along with the recitations of your poems.
  I truly thank you very much, Mr. Douatzis.

I thank you very much for supporting my work and its diffusion in the internet. I would be very happy if our conversation would touch the soul of at least one of your listeners. Only then our conversation would have a reason for existence. Be always well and creative.