Tassos Leivaditis | Juggler with Oranges
Joan Miró, 'The Escape Ladder' (1940) He was the kind of poet you thought was not touching the ground. Tasos Leivaditis's poems accompnied my youthful dreamy days and solitary nights in much the same way that W.B. Yeats would years later. I find politicised poetry rather forced and wooden, writing motivated by some ideology, which willfully forces the text to unforld in a certain preconceived direction. But Leivaditis's poetry - especially of his middle and later period - largely transcends the poet's own political ideology and opens up new paths of expression, not only emotional but also philosophical, if not metaphysical and mystical. The retreat to the inner life often gives rise to unanswered - and perhaps unanswerable - questions about the meaning and value of life but, as in 'Juggler with Oranges', the existential angst generated by the absurdity of existence is intertwined with moments of unexpected joy and wonderment. Juggler with Oranges It’