Complete Poems

George Seferis's Complete Poems reissued as a Carcanet Classic. George Seferis is the great Greek poet of the twentieth century, a classic among classics. The formal and thematic versatility of his work, its decisively modern inflections, call Eliot's poems to mind: fastidious and expansive in equal measure. Like Eliot's deep-rooted Modernism, Seferis's never loses touch with the stones and inscriptions of the past. He writes for his and our time, poetically and politically alert: culture can free us or, misapplied, can trammel us.

Aptly described as `the unlocker of ancient stones and sea voyages', Seferis was for Peter Levi `one of the greatest writers in this century in any language. . . From Seferis it was possible to learn. . . what seriousness about poetry is.' And Archibald MacLeish wrote, `if any contemporary poet can be said to be essential, Seferis is that poet, and this' - referring to an earlier edition of this book - `is the true body of his work'.

About the Author

George Seferis (1900-1971) was born near Smyrna in Asia Minor. His long and distinguished diplomatic career began in 1925: he was appointed Ambassador to the UK, a post which he held from 1957 to 1962. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963. He famously opposed the Greek junta of the Colonels in a BBC radio broadcast in 1969. Roderick Beaton's biography, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel, appeared in 2003.