Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1403840
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 AUGUST 2021 5 BOOKS reotypes. My Greek identity is the language and the land- scape and my relationship to myth has to do with the body, the physical presence in plac- es linked to mythology or with words, that is with a visceral, organic proximity with ele- ments of mythology rather that interpretations of it. Thank you for connecting my grand- mother to Penelope, I haven't thought of it! The poem refers to the fact that my grandmother unrav- elled and stitched back her husband's suit from the inside out, since it was too worn out for him to wear it. This story always fascinated me, the re- silience, the female inventive- ness and craftsmanship that makes things last. Tenaron on the other hand is a real land- scape, the southernmost tip of continental Greece, one of the gates of Hades, the place where Orpheus went to bring Eurydice back, where you find still the remnants of prehistor- ic sites and the ancient temple of Apollo, a wild and beautiful place with layer upon layer of history where reality and my- thology merge. Taking part in the Malta Medi- terranean Literature Festival, I cannot not ask you about the Mediterranean. The sea is female. Attributing a gender to the sea, in our case the Mediterranean Sea, is difficult. In Italian and Maltese, it is male, in French it is female. I consider the Mediterranean Sea as a fluid space, where at times it is enticing, passionate and dreamy, while on the other hand it is raging, menacing and haunting. Why and how do you consider the Mediterranean Sea as "female" – because of its seductiveness, its beauty and its allure? The word sea in Greek is fe- male, "thalassa", I cannot think of it in different terms and that shows how the language de- fines the way we think about the world. My poem plays with these stereotypes, attributing the sea with the female, flu- id, receptive, soft, penetrable, mysterious and uncontrol- lable and the mountain with its phallic formations, hard, impenetrable, as male. In the course of the poem though, these views are overturned and thus the mountain is presented as soft and penetrable, full of waves of green, mysterious and mother like. In poetry things are not what they seem to be or they can be more than one, my poem plays on this unending mystery of the world in which we belong, not as sovereigns but as equals with all the other elements or- ganic and inorganic. You describe your experi- ence of the South "not as a geographical definition but as a horizon of thought". Along the years the gap between the North and South has widened, being it in the context of the European continent and espe- cially the Mediterranean re- gion. Why do you think, we as Mediterraneans must re-think the Mediterranean Sea or the Mediterranean seas? Are we in need of a Southern thought? I do believe there is a south- ern thought, culture, way of life that we need to preserve and defend. In my thoughts South represents a denial. A denial of defeat and a denial of mourn- ing, that is the acceptance of the absolute domination of "there is no alternative" dogma. In my poetry the South is the place which insists to be saved within what has already hap- pened through history, within distraction, the uninterpreted past, within what is ephemer- al and passing, what is secret, within song, friendship and the erotic body. It is the place where I situ- ate, observe and experience the relationship of human with the non-human, the animals, plants and the inorganic world. In this place, considering all the collapses, deaths, the suc- cessive layers of interpretations and inflictions, I seek the state of "despite all that" and the companions against nothing- ness, against resignation from movement and possibility. I seek the common language, which means dialogue. The problem cannot be solved, cannot be rounded, cannot fit in a specific place, but we in- sist nevertheless in the kind of thought that addresses the other, that creates narrative and thus action, we insist on memory as something active, we insist in desiring that which cannot be destroyed. The interview was conducted by Elena Cardona. Katerina Iliopoulou will be participating in the annual Malta Mediterra- nean Literature Festival organ- ised by Inizjamed on the 27th and 28th of August at Fort St Elmo, Valletta. Tickets can be bought from showshappening. com. More info: inizjamed.org mythology influenced her writing "I do believe there is a southern thought, culture, way of life that we need to preserve and defend."