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| Sotirios Pastakas |
Sotirios Pastakas (Larissa, Greece, 1954), poet. He studied Medicine in Rome and Psychiatry in Athens. He has published 18 poetry collections. It has been translated into 20 languages and has taken part in international poetry festivals (San Francisco, Sarajevo, Izmir, Rome, Naples, Siena, Cairo, Istanbul, Medellin, Caracas etc.). Four poetry collections (Corpo a corpo, Jorge, Monte Egaleo, Isola di Chios) are published in Italy, where he won the NordSud Prize in 2016, one in the USA (Food Line), and one in Spain (Cuerpo a cuerpo). In 2019 he donated his library to the Municipal Library of Rapsani. He is a member since 1994 of the Greek Writers’ Society and from 2021 to 2023 National Coordinator of the World Poetry Movement (WPM) for Greece. From 2023 member and coordinator of Poets of the Planet (POP) for Greece. Won poetry prize “Makis Lachanas” in Thessalian Poetry Festival 2023.
from FOOD LINE ( Forepaw Press, San Francisco, USA, 2014)
(Translated by Jack Hirschman and Aggelos Sakis)
An apple-core.
Someone was sitting here
biting an apple.
Then he disappeared. The same day
that History recorded three
deaths in the center of Athens.
Someone else at another
spot left his cigarette butt
before he disappeared too.
History only records:
apple-cores, cadavers, ashes.
Croí úill.
Bhí duine éigin ina shuí anseo
is bhain plaic as úll.
Ní fhacthas ó shin é. An lá céanna
nuair a thaifid an Stair
gur tharla trí bhás i lár na hAithne.
Duine eile in áit eile
d'fhág sé nuta de thoitín ina dhiaidh
ní fhacthas eisean ó shin ach oiread.
Níl á thaifeadadh ag an Stair ach:
croíthe úill, corpáin, luaithreach