‘VIGNETTES’ – 17 APRIL, 2021

I received an email recently from my cousin, Evy, who is visiting her daughter and her family in Singapore.  She mentioned to me how she’s started reading some of my poems to her grandchildren.  I was thrilled. What a good idea to share poetry with children.  I especially liked her suggestion that she would like Laith, her oldest grandchild, to write his own vignettes, maybe of images of summers he has spent with his family on the island of Sifnos in Greece, or his school days. I hope Laith does this – it will open up such possibilities of creative expression for him.  Children, I think, have an instinctive connection to poetry, its messages and forms, and the latitude it gives for freedom and originality of expression.

My main aim with the Vignettes in my book was to contain each one within a maximum of 8 lines – almost like extended Haiku – and that each one would be a world unto itself.  I first got the idea when I read a collection of poems by one of my favourite Greek poets, Yannis Ritsos, in Greek.  He called the collection ‘Thefterolepta’ which translates as ‘Seconds’ – they were each no more than eight lines and brilliantly written.  They inspired me to write my own ‘Vignettes’.

Evy went on to say in her email that she found the book refreshing, in that she was able to read it quickly and understand it, and ‘then re-read to appreciate the structure, the wording, the so well crafted imagery’.  I was also gratified when she commented that while some of the pieces are still so sad, like my first book, they are ‘succinct, loaded, varied’ and they now reveal richer experience in love, ageing, human frailty as well as focusing on children. Finally, she states, ‘The clarity is refreshing, for me. And the crafting of the lines is superb’.  Evy has promised to send me Laith’s vignettes if he decides to write any.  I look forward to reading these poems from a budding poet.  Who knows – it might lead to something more for him in the future.

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