Greek poet George Seferis was awarded the Nobel prize for literature"for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Ellenic world of culture"http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=375

Greek poet George Seferis was born Georgios Seferiades in Urla, near Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey). He worked as a diplomat for the Royal Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963."

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1963/seferis-speech.html In his banquet speech he concluded with a message for a humanitarian world and next day he commented in his Nobel acceptance speech

"When I read in Homer the simple words “φάος ἠελίοιο” - today I would say “φως του ηλίου” (the sunlight) - I experience a familiarity that stems from a collective soul rather than from an intellectual effort. It is a tone, one might say, whose harmonies reach quite far; it feels very different from anything a translation can give. For we do, after all, speak the same language - a language changed, if you insist, by an evolution of several thousand years, but despite everything faithful to itself - and the feeling for a language derives from emotions as much as from knowledge. This language shows the imprints of deeds and attitudes repeated throughout the ages down to our own" http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/4357

"The angel 3 years we waited intently for him,
closely scanning the pines the shore the stars
One with the plough's blade or the keel of the ship
We were searching to rediscover the first seed
so that the ancient drama could begin again."

From the Mythistorema in Collected Poems
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

In 1914, Seferis and his family moved to Athens. He studied law at the Sorbonne in Paris and entered diplomatic service in 1925. Seferis was exiled from Smyrna when it was claimed by Turkey; he subsequently spent many years living and working outside of Greece. Before World War II, he was posted in England and Albania. During the war he moved with the Free Greek Government to Egypt, South Africa, and Italy. After the war, his diplomatic posts included Ankara, London, Lebanon, and Syria. Seferis served as Royal Greek Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1961. In 1962 he retired and moved to Athens. http://youtu.be/KgMrxliF-bQ

Wandering and exile are present in Seferis’s poetry, and his work is attuned to the history of Greece—the Nobel Prize committee recognized him as a “representative Ellenic poet.”

Just a little more
And we shall see the almond trees in blossom
The marbles shining in the sun
The sea, the curling waves.
Just a little more
Let us rise just a little higher

I woke with this marble head in my hands;
It exhausts my elbows and I don't know where to put it down.
It was falling into the dream as I was coming out of the dream.
So our life became one and it will be very difficult for it to separate again http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4112/the-art-of-poetry-no-13-george-seferis

The Dream

I sleep but my heart stays awake

it gazes at the stars, the sky and the tiller

and how the water blossoms on the rudder

(translated by Edmund Keeley)

Some interesting works, essays and dissertations on George Seferis

http://www.academia.edu/1470186/Preliminary_Remarks_on_George_Seferiss_Visual_Poetics_Byzantine_and_Modern_Greek_Studies_32.1_2008_80-103

http://www.enotes.com/topics/george-seferis

http://www.fryktories.gr/article/hope-and-futility-poetry-g-seferis

Denial (Greek: Άρνηση) is a poem by Giorgos Seferis published in his collection Turning Point ("Strophe") in 1931. After the coup that overthrew the Greek government in 1967, Seferis went into voluntary seclusion and many of his poems were banned, including the musical versions which Mikis Theodorakis had written and arranged. Denial came to be the anthem of resistance to the regime and was sung by the enormous crowds lining the streets at Seferis' funeral.

DENIAL [English translation by Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard]

On the secret seashore

white like a pigeon
we thirsted at noon;
but the water was brackish.

On the golden sand
we wrote her name;
but the sea-breeze blew
and the writing vanished.

With what spirit, what heart,
what desire and passion
we lived our life: a mistake!
So we changed our life.

other poems: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/george-seferis#about

http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_58_n_3.pdf

http://books.google.gr/books?id=dN3_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PR5&lpg=PR5&dq=george+seferis+poems&source=bl&ots=TVNKL3SeUk&sig=Gn_8WpXqFcg_2ClwuKwYWuNGDeA&hl=el&sa=X&ei=J1tOVIvLFZPtaI2VgDA&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBzgU#v=onepage&q=george%20seferis%20poems&f=false

George Seferis was an Elected Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and became an Honorary Fellow of the Modern Language Association. http://youtu.be/-4zp3otTQXI

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