Description
The Inconsolable Clock by Andrea Demetriou
‘From the beauty and sadness of Cyprus to the end of Port Melbourne; from the wars for resources, to the existential dead end.’
A collection of poems about INVASION, OCCUPATION and the WAR FOR RESOURCES in the war ravaged MIDDLE EAST, the BALKANS and CYPRUS. Poems of pain and suffering but also about LOVE and belonging.
Andrea was born in Cyprus, raised in Melbourne and now lives in Greece spending her time between Athens and the island of Hydra. She is a poet and a performer.
Her book has been launched on Melbourne, Adelaide and now Sydney at our very own bookshop.
“Like all true poets, Demetriou understands the dignity and profound power of the pause – take us from a Cyprus shattered and divided by the horror of war and occupation, to an evocation of the sight and sounds of inner-city Melbourne streets and then they return to us to the eastern Mediterranean to where another war, an economic war, again shatters and divides. Writing in two languages and two continents, in Cypriot Greek and in Australian English. Demetriou’s voice is that of the outsider. Her voice is born in exile and in migration, how else can she be else? But if there is lament in her poems there is also a defiant and proud declaration of joy. Gamo ta panta sas agapao (Fuck it all, I love you all).
It’s that defiance and generosity that drew me first to Andrea as a person and which makes me fall in love with her as a poet. The truth that is love and the truth that is pain being shot straight into your heart. This is the book you hold in your hands.”
Christos Tsiolkas
“You could argue that there is a political dimension or desire in Andrea’s poems, but that is just one, important aspect of her work. Rather than political, she is more certainly in the lineage of Cavafy, above all the Cavafy of loss of civic virtues destroyed. The concerns of Elytis, too, are there to be seen in Andrea’s work, she is in the tradition of Axion Esti.”
Angelo Loukakis, Author and Executive Director of The Australian Society of Authors
“In her work the political and the personal are inseparable. Her voice rises from a space that lies between cultures, between worlds, between a stolen past and a fragile future. It is the voice of the displaced, a seeker, an activist, and a dreamer, infused with passion and artistry– the private, made transcendent and universal.”
Arnold Zable, awarded Writer, Novelist, and Human Rights Advocate
“Absolutely sublime poems by Andrea, being intuitively gifted to capture a sudden and accidental light on the dark side of the moon.”
Professor Michael Tsianikas, Flinders University
