Exercises 1950–1960 by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Spring Ulmer Holly Pester Poets writing in other languages

Poets writing in other languages read in the original with the English translations read by themselves or by their translators or given as subtitles

but show a drift towards greater depths of open emotion

attentive poems

including the verse-novel And She Was (Pavilion Poetry

these are among the core concerns and explorations of Irish fiction writer Jaki McCarrick in her accomplished debut collection of poems

Exercises 1950–1960 by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Spring Ulmer Holly Pester Poets writing in other languagesPublished 1st November 2025. Yannis Ritsos wrote Exercises 19501960 after being tortured and detained during the Greek Civil War. Incredibly, the poems are filled not with bitterness but with amazementat a solitary leaf, a rope ladder, rose and grey light. Alongside such tenderness, of course, the nation state stretches out in the sun, teeth bared. What to say about the human condition? Not long after completing these poems, Ritsos was again