However, in 1917, with the election of E. Venizelos, who
was in rivalry with King Konstantinos, and with Greece’s participation in the First
World War, Kleon lost his positions of power and a big portion of his assets. The
mandatory and forced expropriations of land, as well as family issues, lead him
to desert the city. For two years the family lived abroad, Italy and France. They
returned to Thessaloniki for a short period of time and in 1921 they decided to
move in the capital, Athens.
…deep down, my entire life, I had always been a trilingual
person. That is because my father was half-American, but American enough for him
to always scold and rebuke me in English; Since I was a child, I also spoke French
due to the house circumstances [the high society of the time used to learn French
at home from prestigious teachers] and of course Greek… I had even learnt Italian,
the first language I had ever learnt was Italian, which, later on, I forgot by changing
languages. (Hadjilazaros,
1984)
In Athens, even though Kleon continues his economical and
commercial activities, as well as his relations with the Royal Family, gradually
is led to economical destruction with a contributing factor being the economic crisis
of 1929-1931. Being addicted to morphine, due to serious health issues, both he
and his wife, Matsie’s mother, Virginia, lost their lives to it.
Matsie experiences all of the above in her critical childhood
and adultescence years. Having being raised in an at least trilingual cosmopolitan
environment with frequent moves between cities and countries (her family carries
out numerous trips in Central and Northern Europe even at the time when they had
moved to Athens) and with experiencing an intense social and cosmic life in her
early teenage years, she faces gradually the social, economic decline of her family,
as well as the death of her parents. In the early 30s, Matsie, for her to ensure
her livelihood, she finds occupation in a Folk Art Shop. In 1931, at the age of
18, she marries Karl Schurmann of Bavarian origin; their marriage does not last
very long. In 1937, they get divorced and at the same year she marries the agronomist
and garden architect Spyros Tsaousis, however, this marriage does not last long
either as of the following year she begins the divorce process. Matsie seeks to
resolve her issues by resorting to the new science that was emerging in Greece at
the time: psychoanalysis. The originator of psychoanalysis in Greece was Andreas
Empeirikos, originating from a prestigious ship-owner background, who had been apprenticed
by René Laforgue. In 1933 in Paris, Empeirikos through the mediation of the psychoanalyst
Jean Frois-Wittman, he became acquainted with André Breton and began participating
in the daily meetings of the surrealists in Place Blanche. With his lecture “On
Surrealism” and the publication of his poetic collection “Ypsikamikos”, surrealism
is being introduced in Greece for the first time in 1935. His meeting with Matsie
Hadjilazaros would evolve in a love affair and then to marriage (1939).
FIELD
To Matsie
You were like a silence pirced by the wind. However, I
had healed your wound and the words we spoke, brought us so close, that the silence
and the gap of the days before we met, were entirely gone. In the field of our meeting,
which became the field of our love, no others are adjacent. You are nice and your
beauty transcends the limits of the urban land and even reaches the borders of your
yesterday’s loneliness, which you brought down. Yes, in this field, there are no
others adjacent. I am close to you and live in your hopes, as you remain in my eyelids
while I sleep. The words of others do not matter, because they lost the tone they
had before we met and the faces of others began to look like foreign faces, unknown
to me and, perhaps, to you. However what’s the harm. The shell of the past broke,
and you emerged whole, definitive and with velvet that left your chest half-naked.
For those reasons, this field, I will never forget it; I will buy it, and I will
never sell it. (…)
My love, I love you, and our journey will be, like a spring
procession of scents.
Andreas Empeirikos
“Field”, dedicated
to Matsie, was written by Empeirikos at the beginning of his relationship with Hadjilazaros,
and was published in 1960 in the collection Writings
or Personal Mythology.
Matsie is introduced
by Andreas Empeirikos to the world of poetry and surrealism. Matsie is obviously
fascinated by surrealism as she finds in it much of what she was looking for in
her life up to this point: the true essences of life beyond the borders of conventional
logic, the poetic expression without distortion, the importance of major and romantic
love. Simultaneously, she experiments with automatic writing.
During the German
Occupation of Athens (1941-1944), Matsie and Empeirikos continue to meet with other
young intellectuals and avant-garde artists in their house every Thursday.
After all, we now had, for the evening hours, acquired
another shelter, the new house of Andreas Empeirikos on Georgiou Ainianos Street.
The regular gatherings on Thursdays, which were held throughout the period of the
Occupation, and even –but not with the same liveliness– after the Liberation, remained
historic. They began, like all things that one does not plan, with a few friends,
to get to include, at the end of the Occupation, a very wide circle from all generations
and from all fractions, all those who, regardless of age or political position,
they believed, above all, that people should remain free and in the deepest and
correct meaning of the term.
Amorgos by Nikos Gatsos, Bolivar by Nikos Engonopoulos,
Ursa minor by Takis Papatsonis, Agios Antonios by Antonios Vousvounis, the poems
of Nanos Valaoritis and Matsie Andreou (Hadjilazaros), the poems of the unjustly
murdered Kitsos Maltezos-Makrygiannis, as well as the poems of numerous other young
poets were read there for the first time. (…)
Our moral was fortunately thriving and there was no lack
of humour. (…)
And let the moralists, or I should say the narrow-minded,
claim that it was shameful at the time when others were starving or being killed
for us to have fun. Most of us who were “having fun” were, in fact, starving or
were getting killed secretly at night without ever making a fuss about it.
Odysseas Elytis,
1987
And everyone was asking who she means: Empeirikos, whom
she was leaving, or Kampas, who was following?
Manos Hadjidakis, 1988
Nowadays, it is evident that the dedication to Andreas
is for Andreas Empeirikos, not only because she had stated so in an interview forty
years later, but also for the reason that in her archive was found manuscripts of
her poems from the period she was living with Empeirikos, for whom the same dedication
was made. Additionally, the way the poems are written reminds of Empeirikos’ way.
The dedication is characterized as personal and private, its receiver is aware to
whom it is insinuated to address and the reasons behind the dedication. If an explanation
was provided, regarding the identification of the persona of the dedication, that
would be a retreat to social conventions, a typical explanatory act for the public;
however “in the field of [their] meeting, which became the field of [their] love,
no others are adjacents”.
While I was writing May, June and November my elders considered
me to be completely immoral. (…)
It was the years of the war. Confessing your love for a
man, in my own unfamiliar way, was considered to be very unethical.
Before the Occupation ended, there was a well-known pro-german
newspaper critic who was stating the desire for my book to be burned.
I wanted to write about a natural and carnal excitement,
I wanted to break the conventions, but you know those differ for everyone (…) Apart
from religion (which I have no particular contact with), apart from religion and
love, cannot find what else someone could do.
Hadjilazaros, 1986
POEMS FROM MAY, JUNE AND NOVEMBER
[I think of a life
that would be overwhelming like this day]
I think of a life that would be overwhelming like this
day,
only if you were gone on a trip. In the morning I think
of your limbs tightly bound – there, somehow, I find
your embrace. At night I gaze at your lips like a nibbled
fruit.
Come, the day is so lovely – the poems which
I love I desire to spend hem with you. So
many things I could
turn into happiness and give them to you.
Every moment I could turn it into primitive music,
soft fur, warm, electrified, which
sinks deep inside. A dance perfectly free, instead of
limbs you have wings, then again wings of a dream. Or scents
–would you prefer cents? Then, they are going to be refreshing,
like small waterfalls full of Adiantums – or like a seaside
where the seaweed, the starfish, the sea urchin go out
in the sun – and the wave in the sandy beach is not solemn
but playful. Of course, the far out sea has a tender tragedy.
[The night has fallen
into the open sea]
The night has fallen into the open sea – where is the day
for me?
Where are the rays of the sun upon my eyelids,
where are the unfulfilled desires of my flesh upon the
sand, where are
the scops owl, the cicadas, and my five voices?
Tomorrow I will join your two legs, in hopes that a small,
sad child is going to be born, named Ious, Manius and maybe,
Aqua Marina.
Bring me to birth all the babies in creation, give me to
die all the deaths.
A few strings of music are enough for us to run
barefoot upon the grass of the North, to count
all of the droplets of our body and to weave
with our hand all the jute rugs of our musing days.
[How can I erase
these desires of May?]
How can I erase these desires of May?
How can these tears of an ethereal twilight dry up?
I mourn all of the girls’ manes that are laying
upon pillows of conventional love.
I will give them a white rose in my apron
and a red one – maybe they’ll see them, maybe they’ll smell
them.
I will give them a gold fly that suddenly finds the sun
while singing in my hair – maybe they’ll see it, maybe
they’ll hear it.
I’ll say to them: look at the vigorous men, the free ones,
the lion man, the masted-ship man, the lamina man
and bow man and man with voice from the mountain top –
then maybe
they give themselves to him, yes, maybe they will fall
in love.
If I had the voice I am asking for, an entire urban land
would not
be enough for me to bring it along to my spring stroll.
I ask: has anyone ever gone through dusks that do not perish,
and the pleasant fragments that do not disappear but become
our shadows,
and our five senses when they pant and scream at our heart?
I want to lay my silk limbs on a bracing beach,
I want to lose my gaze in the infinite blue of
my own sea, I want my breaths and pulses to be
the breaths and pulses of my prevalent love.
Eros, love, lust, pleasure.
E r o s, E r o s.
Where she was born, I don’t know. She lived, like me, during
the Occupation. And she left from Greece, just after the end of the War. She got
lost in the destroyed Europe ‒back when Greece
was Greece and Europe, Europe. She got lost… so to say. Because the real girls,
never get lost. Never lost to time. They come back with the form of books, praises
and songs.
Manos Hadjidakis
In the midst of 1945, and during the intense period in
Greece due to the civil strife in Athens on December 1944, the principle of the
French Institute of Athens, Octave Merlier, suggested for an adequate amount of
scholarships to be given to Greek students to study in France. Matsie Hadjilazaros,
after three marriages, having passed her 30 years of age and without any former
education, because of the era’s norm for wealthy families to get educated by private
tutors at home, submitted an application for a scholarship. The three recommendation
letters needed are provided by Andreas Empeirikos, Odysseas Elytis and Takis Papatsonis
who extol her poetic talent, like it had been depicted in her first collection May, June and November (1944).
Athens, 16 of August, 1945
The signatory ANDREAS EMPEIRIKOS (author, psychoanalysists)
certifies that Mrs. MATSIE EMPEIRIKOS, née HADJILAZAROS,
with the pseudonym MATSIE ANDREOU, is a young woman gifted with undoubtfully huge
poetic talent. Her poems can be considered as a peek in women’s sensitive, which
is being expressed in an entirely personal, completely original and infatuated way.
I highlight, unhesitantly, that I consider Mrs. Matsie Andreou as the greatest Greek
female poet. Additionally, I am certain that this charming young lady can provide
the best services to the case of the profoundly human and humanitarian culture of
France, which, more than in any other country, echoes and palpitates in Greece,
a country so close intellectually and ethically to yours [France].
Andreas Empeirikos
On December 21 of 1944 the New Zealand ship “Mataroa” (which
in Polynesian means “the woman with big eyes”) arrived at the port of Piraeus and
on December 22 the ship set sail for Italy. This is the largest exodus of young
scientists and artists of that period. According to Kornilios Kastoriadis, scholarship
of the Institute and passenger of the ship states that Mataroa’s journey is “a historical
event of modern Greece, which someday will have to be written…”. In the ship, besides
the scholarship holders of the Institute, many young scientists and artists boarded
the ship, who had relations with the Institute followed on their own expenses. All
previously mentioned are going to have asylum and all students’ rights, rights to
participate in the campus and rights to occupation in France. On board, among others,
the writers Mimika Kranaki and Elli Alexiou, philosophers Kostas Papaioannou and
Kostas Axelos, sculptor Memos Makris, painter Nelli Andrikopoulou, cinematographer
Manos Zacharias, historian Nikos Svoronos, philologist Emmanouil Kriaras and many
others. Also, among the passangers of Mataroa are Spyros Tsaousis, Matsie’s second
husband, her then partner and very promising poet Andreas Kampas and Matsie Hadjilazaros.
5-1-46
My dear Andreas,
We have arrived.
I think we arrived on the midnight of December 30th.
The exhaustion on the Italian trains is indescribable – so be it! From Taranto and
onward, I, at least, travelled as if I were in a nightmare, having lost every hope
that I will ever see Paris.
Now, let me think what I wanted to say to you. I am still
entirely in shock, I am living a new love with Paris, without having adapted to
the rhythm and atmosphere of my new lover. I never imagined that a city, its civilization
and tradition, and the spirit, could excite me like this. I am speechless […]
However, I need to tell you that Paris seems to have changed
immensely. At 12 p.m. the metro stops and all the centers are closed by 22:30 due
to restricted electricity. The food is horrible unless you go to the black market.
Of course, we most definitely don’t go there. The theatres and the concerts are
also extremely expensive. Cars are scarce in the streets and, as far as I recall,
the city is rather deserted. In order to get a taxi so that you can transport any
luggage, you have to resolve the “Eastern Question”. But if you are well settled,
you can live off your food coupons, which are expensive, but they provide everything,
from fresh butter, to wine, et fruits exotiques etc.!
As if I am Greece I largely envy their organization. Now
I am beginning to understand few of the things that you love in France. You were
right, this is not just verbalisme – there is SPIRIT. […]
Many many kisses, my gougouchaki
Matsie
[this is the place
of painting]
This is the place of painting
this is the place of poetry
The trees in the winter are naked without their leafs,
but from every branch
of all the trees in the big roads and alleys (in the small
ones) and the squares grows a musing fresh poetry, even if the winter is so cold
The houses are darkened by all the shadows
My homeland is chasing me
My homeland is chasing me
here
in city of painting
here, where in the winter
from every brach of the avenue’s tree, in the streets,
in the squares
grows a musing fresh poetry
here where rocks
are vines
I saw the bunches
But my homeland is chasing me
me who never knew how to cuddle
I am chased by this child
which I should have birthed
instead of running away hiding in some shelves of a shop,
or in the
Proust and in the aubépines
even maybe I am chased by two or three kids
I am chased by Dionysos
and once in Greece
he almost caught me, in Varkiza
but never could I face him
and say – here I am, I want you to take
my naked self
I am a corner shelf
whatever you place on me
it falls
Spring 1946, Paris
According to the practice of the time, the introducer of
surrealism in Greece and psychoanalyst Andreas Empeirikos had provided Matsie with
reference letters so that she can get in contact with intellectual people who lived
in Paris, with whom he maintained personal relationships with.
I still have not used any of the letters you have given
me, nor any of them. For now I do not have a place within me for any human acquaintance.
Matsie 5-1-46
Wait till you hear that I met Tzara and fought fiercely
from the first moment. He almost called me a bigot and a collaboratrice and I called
him almost stupid and naive to believe word for word the propaganda of the Communist
Party. Eventually, when we calmed down a bit, he said to me – “I have met a rather
nice Greek, Empeirikos”. “Well” I said, “my ex-husband”, “Ah oui?” in a tone that
says “well then ma’am maybe you’re not that horrible after all”. Then Andreas [Kampas]
spoke up – “Justement les rouges ont failli l’ assasiner!”. But of course he chose
not to hear it. However, last time I saw him, he told me to say “hi” to you.
Why bother, my dear Andreas, I am frightened by all this,
I see that they are all passionate and committed leftists. We who are not, what
do we represent in our time? The Alexandrians? The décadents? Politics becomes more
and more indifferent and hateful to me, all filth and lies and immorality. But it
seems that if you have faith, you don’t investigate. Soon all artists will make
a certain art, just as once everyone made Christian art. Fortunately, we are on
the edge, so I get to be with the Alexandrians.
[….] I have another reason for being that angry against
politics – I feel trapped – because now I know positively that if I have to live
my whole life outside of Greece I will always feel exiled. Why bother, I’m Romia.
But then again I can’t bear to face political turmoil in my own country.
I’m weak, I can’t stand it. So be it! […]
Thank you for the wishes, gougouchakis – you’re the only one who remembered it.
Match, 16-2-46
The letter shows that Matsie met with Tristan Tzara, the
pioneer of the Dada movement, at least twice during the first 40 days of her stay
in Paris, and without having a letter of introduction for this meeting. Empeirikos’
personal relationship with Tzara is also inferred. Tzara, at the time, was politically
active, having participated in the Spanish Civil War and the French Resistance,
was a member of the National Assembly, and the following year (1947) joined the
Communist Party. Andreas’ (Kampas) reference to the communists, who almost assassinated
Empeirikos, is a reference to the hostage-taking of the poet, as well as thousands
of other Athenians, by the ELAS (formerly known as the PLA) guerrillas during the
ELAS’ disengagement from Athens at the end of December 1944. Empeirikos, during
the walk of the hostages to Krora, where many of the hostages were killed, managed
to escape.
Now, about Breton. I went with the Dominguezes, with whom
I am very friendly, to the Deux Magots, where Breton was reigning at a long, long
table. Something Sikelianian in his manner. As soon as I was introduced he asked
me how you were; he said that throughout the war he had been thinking of you with
great regard and friendship, and was so pleased to hear from you at last. I told
him all the news I could think of, concerning you, and in short the state of literature
in Greece, the influence of surrealism, etc. [...] However, Breton now seems to
be in a difficult position, he has lost all his best lads and he himself, because
he did not live through this war, seems to have been left behind in something. I
now understand that surrealism was something much greater than I had imagined –
perhaps many surrealist artists of the best kind did not realize it themselves.
Be that as it may, Breton now gives me the impression of a gentleman handling an
alphabet three letters short. So be it – he can find them again. I declared that
I would not go to the Deux Magots to see him again, although he was more than kind
to me– for there is an air of court and servility about him unbearable. If I meet
him and we become friends – in a house or elsewhere, fine – but like this – No!
I forgot to tell you, of course, that he told me to give you his regards, and that
he has always thought of you and thinks of you with great friendship and esteem
and regard.
Matsie 1-9-46
It seems that Matsie sought to meet with Breton through
the surrealist painter Oscar Dominguez, who introduced her to him, and not to make
use of the letter of recommendation that Empeirikos had supplied her with. The meeting
took place at the well-known café Deux Magots, the post-war artistic hangout of
the surrealists, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris. Breton had been absent from Paris
since 25 March 1941. During these years the surrealist group had weakened. Tzara
presented himself as the new leader and exponent of surrealism, while polemics against
surrealism were also waged by the existentialists: Sartre, Camus and academic circles.
Matsie, in a direct and clear way (something like – No!) summarizes her attitude
towards the atmosphere of court and servitude she encountered around Breton. She
chooses not to pursue contacts with the man who pulled the strings of surrealism
in France because the surrounding atmosphere did not suit her. She does not deny
Breton, but would prefer to meet him on other occasions. With “No!”, Matsie expresses
her general biotheory towards the compromises and expediencies that are encountered
in life and art.
We also met a nephew of Picasso, called XAVIERVILATÓ. I’ve
seen his works twice, and it seems to me that he has a huge talent. He looks a lot
like his uncle’s works in the face, and his painting, of course, is very much influenced
by him. We’ve seen a lot of Picassos, but this kid seems, beside that point – rather
malgré ça, very strong talent; we’ll see.
Matsi, 26-4-46
Now about PICASSO. Exhibition at Galerie Carré. I went
– unfortunately only three times. About twenty paintings. Each one individually
a finished world of a genius. It seems to me that this last phase of his is not
only the perfection of the medium of expression, but also the most tenderly human,
the most erotic. I realized that I was standing in front of the work of a génie.
Here is the “worldly consciousness” roughly, manly, without philologisms, you know
that the woman he loves is not only a person as we think we see her; and he is not
afraid and follows his thought and his estrus to its last consequence, and the wood
of the chair on which the woman sits looks like it’s about to sprout twigs and leaves.
Moreover, the absolute pleasure and mastery of painting, for all his life he fights
as the bull and the bullfighter.
It gets me, how shall I put it? A feeling of gratitude
to the world that Picasso exists and that I have seen and continue to see his work.
Matsie, 1-9-46
Matsi, due to her relationship with Vilato, will enter
the circle of the Spanish painter. She became close to Picasso’s companion Françoise
Gilot, with whom she corresponded from 1948 until at least 1961. In Matsie Hadjilazaros’
archive are dozens of photographs of Picasso’s family in everyday life, as well
as drawings by Gilot, which the latter had enclosed in her letters to Matsie.
There [in Paris] I became very friendly with Vilato and
it’s because of this that I saw Picasso very closely, as I had requested at the
French Institute, very closely. And not only did I see Picasso up close, but one
day he says “we are going to St. Paul de Vance” –”To do what?” –”Meet Matisse”.
And so I saw Matisse up close, who was sick; he was working in the mornings, in
the afternoons he was in bed. And I see them talking to each other in plural.
–”No, you are the greatest” –”No, you are the greatest”
[...] and so I saw Matisse up close, thanks to Picasso [...]
Picasso is perhaps the man I have admired and appreciated
most in the world. [...]
Matsie, 1984
Matsie’s love affair with Vilato will end in 1954. A few
years later, in Athens, she will write the poem “The Pumas”.
PUMAS
Deprivation was
also a companion
Very honest were the hours each time I’ve wanted to attempt
against my life and above all against my hand that knew
only to trace the word desolation
that’s how far I am from the day that I no longer feel
it
a vigilance of fears I no longer look forward to joy
your picture still closer to me than any man
I love you I think of you I write you I don’t know how
to breathe without
you anymore my heart is not of my concern I love you love
love
I look at you always eros, how can I erase you hearing
your voice here
in Greece I know your eyes and your hands that untied the
flowers around my neck for you I was wearing them
[...]
how can I be without telling the lover who became this
deprivation
of your body close to mine this deprivation of your love
all of it in every moment of my jealousy
[...]
The verse that struggles to speak now I deny it
it struck me with silence for seven long years
you are the only one to whom I want to narrate endlessly
myself to shout to scream to death to stir my tongue
into my delirium till the gag that you are wears off
you are you and you and you and a dozen more you
cause I know a thousand you.
What must I do in this square to find Saint-Germain-
des-Prés what gets into me and I confuse my steps with
my personal memories constantly I search for the past in front of this church and the café and the bookshop next door
an attempt so comical when I try to read the words of the
titles in the showcase
I’ve been mutilated by you the light of the whole life
of mine
only your smell escapes your eyes the love in your voice
they all chase me to my door where a wall of words stands
– know that it’s over for all the days to come
– but I don’t know how to
– everybody’s turn to die
– and if he’s still looking for me
– no for him, you’re finished.
– where to be lost
– follow sorrow in all its work
– then live to lick my wounds
Ah, the despair of the gaunt puma as it wanders incessantly
in its cage and snuffles up and down each of its bars and walks along the wall to
reach the bottom of its prison where each time enters a voice so piercing and strange
that I can still hear it in my trench
For the next twenty years (1954-1973), Matsie would move
between Paris and Athens. In 1957 and 1958 she would live with the Greek philosopher
and fellow traveler in Mataroa, Cornelius Castoriadis. The relationship with Castoriadis
was the last long-term relationship in Matsie’s life.
In 1958 she would attempt to settle in Athens, leaving
Paris. In Athens, she worked for the National Tourism Organization (EOT), while
at the same time she was engaged in jewellery making for her livelihood.
[Even if I deny
it for a hundred times]
Even if I deny it for a hundred times
the backbone of my life rests on my land
and in every love sun
irrevocably
[...]
In 1965, she moved to Paris, where she worked in the furniture
store of Varangis, facing financial difficulties and health problems. She finally
returned to Athens in 1973, where she worked in public relations for Emporiki Bank
until her honorary retirement from the Ministry of Culture in 1979. In the course
of these years, both her companion during her journey with Mataroa, the poet Andreas
Kampas (December 1965) and her third husband, as her initiate into the world of
poetry, Andreas Empeirikos (August 1975) would pass away.
[Tonight I ache
in all my despairs]
Tonight I ache in all my despairs
it’s too cold under the shade
of my life that’s grown old
deep sips of melancholy
are hired assassins
let now the slaughter be organized
of everything I still love
Matsie would spend the last years of her life relatively
withdrawn from the intellectual life of Athens in a small basement apartment on
Patriarchou Ioakeim Street. In 1979, after 28 years of publishing absence, an anthology
of poems entitled Eros Melachrinos was
published by Ikaros. The collection attracted a relative interest from critics and
the press. However, it was the presentation of her work and life by Manos Hadjidakis
on the Third Programme of the Hellenic Radio, entitled “Eros Melachrinos, the Pendulum
and the Matsie of Dreams” that will introduce Matsie and her work to a new circle
of people. The exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s works held in Athens in 1983, which
will also include a ceramic piece by the artist decorated with Matsie’s lyrics,
will attract the attention of the artists.
Having met the people in charge of the printing shop of
Keimena, she will publish her collection Εφτά γραπτά in Greek – Sept texts en Français – Seven writings in English in 1984. Her last collection of poems will be in 1985,
Cinq Fois. Reverse dedication – Dédicace à
rebours. In it she will include the poems from her 1949 collection Cinq Fois. Matsie will again work on these
texts, which contain the atmosphere and experiences of her stay in Paris, in order
to transcribe them into Greek. She will also add a final poem to the collection
in two versions: in Greek and French. This is her last published poem with which
she concludes her poetic testimony, her poetic life. She had begun in 1944 with
the collection May, June and November,
which she had dedicated to Andreas; she ends with the poem “Reverse Dedication”,
a poem which, although it does not indicate the recipient of the dedication, is
a complete confession of the writer in the second person, to the recipient of the
poem and the dedication. This recipient is none other than Andreas Empeirikos, not
only because this is what Matsie has hinted at in her last interview, but primarily
because what she notes in her poem leads to him. In 1985, Matsie Hadjilazaros was
seventy-one years old, in fragile health; she died two years later. Andreas Empeirikos
had died ten years earlier, in 1975. They divorced in 1944. The “Reverse Dedication”
is in fact Matsie Hadjilazaros’ last writing to Andreas Empeirikos, her last letter
to him. The fact that the recipient of the poem-dedication is not alive to read
it, to receive it, makes Matsie’s confession even more liberated, more absolute,
more complete. Eros and its confession must be absolute, mad; otherwise Νο.
One day, I had a conversation with Marguerite Yourcenar
and I said to her, “Perhaps we are too selfish, and not generous enough when we
have a grievance with someone”. I reflected on this in my mind and thought that
I had shown a terrible lack of generosity with a person. “Reverse Dedication” came
out as a thank you.
Hadjilazaros, 1986
REVERSE DEDICATION
For the one with the manly voice-look and with big winged
hands
that I don’t forget the afternoon you said thirty years I waited
for you and felt for the first time “le vierge le vivace
et le bel aujourd’hui” then a strong wind of love opened wide a window inside me
and large drops of glee came in as the south wind turned buzzing from the corner
of my heart the body is earth thirsty
of you it learned the floods of love a
lot
I think I’ll speak now a lot that I’ve kept in a hiding
place I’ll spread it here as best as I
can and what is to be may be
[...]
I wish I could oh
how much I wish I could yes I wish I could
right now now I’d like to scrape out the syntax a bit to sing
you like
I learned in Paris
I have you like a Dinosaur of the most amazing ones
I have you like a pebble a soft fruit that the sea has
ripened
I fall in love with you
I envy you
I jasmine you
[...]
you my page
you my pencil my
interpreter
I open your drawers
how come you didn’t visit me all those times
I’ve wrenched you away I say now
endlessly I’m sorry
in coldness you have ever known my heart
we met in a wonderful year
I’m robbing you from someone else’s hands
I hear you everywhere
I silence you in my infinite tenderness
slowly we’ll settle down
I haven’t said it all
YOU ROOT ME UP
NOTE
The text is based on the books:
Christos Daniil, Ious, Manius and maybe Aqua Marina, Matsie
Hadjilazaros, The first Greek female surrealist, Topos, Athens 2011.
Matsie Hadjilazaros, Letters from Paris to Andreas Empeirikos
(1946-1947) and other unpublished poems and prose of the same period, Introduction,
memorandum, edited by Christos Daniil, Agra, Athens 2013.
CHRISTOS DANIIL (Grécia, 1969). PhD holder in Modern Greek Literature (University of Ioannina). He is teaching as an adjunct Lecturer (tutor) at the Hellenic Open University since 2002 and at the Open University of Cyprus since 2009. His research interests lie mainly in the fields of surrealism, post-war poetry and literature in education. He has published a number of articles on related topics in peer-reviewed journals, and he is the author of 9 books. Resent books: Matsie Hatdjilazaros, Γράμματα από το Παρίσι στον Ανδρέα Εμπειρίκο [Letters from Paris to Andreas Empeiricos] (1946-1947), Agra, Athens 2013 (Essay Prize by Public Book Awards), Andreas Campas, Agra, Athens 2016 (Essay Prize by Academy of Athens), Όλα δεν τα ‘χω πει, Η «Αντίστροφη αφιέρωση της Μάτσης Χατζηλαζάρου [I haven’t said everything, The “Reverse Dedication” of Matsie XatzilazHatdjilazaros], Agra, Athens 2022.
SÉRVULO ESMERALDO (Brasil, 1929-2017). Escultor, grabador y dibujante, Sérvulo Esmeraldo se inició profesionalmente en Fortaleza, a finales de los años 1940, en los talleres libres de SCAP – Sociedade Cearense de Artes Plásticas. Trasladado a São Paulo en 1951 para estudiar arquitectura, se sintió atraído por la efervescencia de la 1ª Bienal y su revolución artístico-cultural. Su exposición realizada en el MAM (SP), en 1957, le acreditó para un año de estudios en París, becado por el gobierno francés. Una temporada que se saldó con una estancia de más de veinte años. Y en el desarrollo de una obra plural y con muchas vertientes. En París, asistió a los talleres de Litografía de la École Nationale des Beaux-Arts y de Grabado en metal de Johnny Friedlaender, dedicándose en gran medida a este último, habiendo realizado incluso grabados a partir de gouaches y pinturas para Serge Poliakoff. Poseedor de una considerable obra grabada, editada y distribuida por importantes editoriales europeas, a mediados de los años 1960, Esmeraldo estaba decidido a no dedicarse exclusivamente al grabado. Estaba interesado en poner en práctica sus proyectos cinéticos. De la misma época datan las esculturas de plexiglás en blanco y negro, cuyo interés es la topología del volumen. Inició su regreso a Brasil en 1977, trabajando en proyectos de arte público que incluían esculturas monumentales en el paisaje urbano de Fortaleza, ciudad donde estableció su estudio en 1979. Fue creador y curador de la I y II Exposición Internacional de Arte Efímero. Esculturas (Fortaleza, 1986 y 1991). Con importantes exposiciones realizadas y participación en salones, bienales y otras exposiciones colectivas en Europa y América, su obra está representada en los principales museos del país y en colecciones públicas y privadas de Brasil y del exterior. Artista invitado en esta edición de Agulha Revista de Cultura.
Agulha Revista de Cultura
Número 249 | março de 2024
Artista convidado: Sérvulo Esmeraldo (Brasil, 1929-2017)
editora | ELYS REGINA ZILS | elysre@gmail.com
ARC Edições © 2024
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