By Catherine Curan

In Modern Greek and English, accompanied by video of bleating goats and their goatherds, and the clang of a goat bell, poet Phoebe Giannisi wove a multi-sensory spell at Scheide Caldwell House on November 7, transfixing her audience.

A native of Athens, Greece, Giannisi visited the Seeger Center on an East Coast tour for her new poetry collection, "Chimera," translated from Modern Greek by Brian Sneeden and published by New Directions in July 2024. Cosponsored by the Seeger Center and the Humanities Council, this event was Giannisi's first visit to Princeton University and the latest highlight in her ongoing collaborations with the Seeger Center. Giannisi has visited the Princeton Athens Center on multiple occasions, participating in workshops led by Brooke Holmes, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Classics and an associated faculty member of the Seeger Center, in 2018 and 2022, and meeting with Princeton undergraduates, most recently in March 2024.

Her reading at Princeton filled the seminar room. Kathleen Crown, executive director of the Humanities Council, introduced Giannisi. Associate Professor of Creative Writing Katie Farris served as respondent, and Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Karen Emmerich, a member of the Class of 2000 and a graduate of the Program in Hellenic Studies, led the discussion.

Born in Athens, Giannisi began writing poetry as a teenager and earned a Ph.D. in Classics. She teaches architecture and cultural studies at the University of Thessaly.

In an interview before the reading, Giannisi said "Chimera" was partly sparked by a desire to understand the Greek word tragedy, which means song of the he-goat. That prompted questions about the gendered aspects of goat herds, motherhood, humans and animals, and the power shepherds wield. Giannisi, who melds forms and disciplines in her creative work, spent three years researching a community of Vlachs, which has its own language and engages in an ancient practice known as transhumance, herding goats from the lowlands of Thessaly to the Pindus mountains in Northern Greece. Working in collaboration with a former student, Chara Stergiou, who is now an artist, Giannisi created the videos that accompanied the reading. 

Giannisi spoke about her "chimeric identity" spanning Classics, architecture, and poetry. 

"Poetry connects everything. The sense of place connects everything, poetry and architecture and my understanding of Classics and texts and archaeology. Also, the place as it is today. For me, it's Greece through Greek language," she said.

"How can we understand … how much we ourselves are animals? How can we understand our voice as a voice that belongs together, the animal and the human?" Giannisi continued, adding, “[To say] what I wanted to say, I did a polyphonic work. I would rather the reader circulate in between the various texts and poems.”

Giannisi's reading was the latest milestone in the Seeger Center's long tradition of fostering the art of literary translation at Princeton and in Greece. The Center's founder, Stanley J. Seeger '52, was a poet and composer with a deep love of literature. Seeger included support for creative work and publications in the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund's charter in 1979. To launch Hellenic studies at Princeton, the University enlisted Edmund Keeley, a preeminent translator and scholar of Modern Greek literature. Keeley (1928-2022) served as the second chair of Princeton's Committee on Hellenic Studies, a predecessor to the Seeger Center. Keeley collaborated with other Princetonians, including translator Robert Fagles and Seeger Center director Dimitri Gondicas, to establish the University as a hub for Modern Greek literature in translation with readings, classes, mentoring for early-career translators, and a recurring literary translation workshop.

"From the very beginning in the early 1980s, thanks to Edmund (Mike) Keeley's charismatic teaching, acclaimed translations, and ground-breaking research, Hellenic Studies at Princeton focused on the study of Modern Greek literature as world literature. Ever since, we have actively promoted international exchanges that enable Greek writers to interact creatively with Princeton scholars and students," said Gondicas.

Giannisi began the reading by writing the title, "Transhumance," on the board. The program defined transhumance as "literally meaning crossing the land. Borrowed from the French transhumance, ultimately from Latin trans ("across, beyond") and humus ("ground")."

Standing at the head of the seminar table, Giannisi unrolled a cured goatskin inscribed with poetry, a "first version" of the work that became “Chimera.” She shared excerpts in Greek and English as videos of goats and goatherds played on a screen behind her. Blurring the boundaries between human and animal, body and text, Giannisi explored the "goatself," one of the narrators in her polyphonic collection, ringing the bell of the she-goat and draping the cured goatskin around her neck.

"It was an honor to host Phoebe for this moving, unforgettable evening and to witness her chimeric poetics in action. From the ritual ringing of a goat bell to her performative readings, goatskin text, and video ethnography, she lifted the poems of "Chimera" off the page, for an attentive and appreciate audience," said Kathleen Crown.

In her response to the reading, Farris explored Giannisi's creation of a hybrid work combining poetry, anthropological study, and other forms. Farris noted that hybrid forms challenge standard narratives such as the concept that humans stand apart from, and hold sway over, the animal kingdom.

Instead, Farris said, the multiplicity of voices in "Chimera" reveals "new ways to think about and experience our place in the world — not as individual, but as multiple, as communal. The hybrid form Giannisi uses gives us new ways to think and engage."

Giannisi has published eight books of poetry, including "Homerica," also translated by Sneeden, which Anne Carson named one of her two favorite books of 2017 in “The Paris Review.” (The other title was Maria Laina's "Rose Fear," translated by Sarah McCann '98, a Program in Hellenic Studies graduate. World Poetry Books published both titles.)

In an interview, Giannisi highlighted the value of a core aspect of the Seeger Center's work: fostering travel by Princeton students and scholars to Greece, travel to Princeton by their Greek counterparts, and intellectual exchange. She noted that she enjoys talking with Princeton students about Greece today.

"The contemporary scene is strong … even if we are not rich. Going there and being in touch with Greece itself, the space, the land, and the city of Athens [is important]. It's very important for Greek people also to be able to come here.”

She praised the Center's collaboration with Holmes and the Benaki Museum in Greece for its innovative approach to the study of Classics. In 2018, a cohort of classicists, poets, artists, archaeologists and curators met at the Princeton Athens Center for a workshop on "Liquid Antiquity," a multimedia project. Holmes, Gondicas, and Benaki Museum Curator Polina Kosmadaki collaborated to organize the workshop. In 2022, Giannisi participated in a workshop titled "Currents" at the Princeton Athens Center, organized by Holmes, Kosmadaki, and Yorgos Tzirtzilakis, a professor of architecture at the University of Thessaly, which included artists, scholars and students.

"It was very interesting," said Giannisi. "This idea of trying to connect contemporary art with Classics in a way that rejuvenates Classics also … is a direction that could be further elaborated. It's important. Otherwise in Greece the humanities are really sinking, students are not choosing it. The idea of searching for how we can do something against that is very crucial."