Zacharoula Gaitanaki
Zacharoula Gaitanaki was born inAthenson November. 30th, 1966. Now, she is a small farmer and lives with her family in Zoni, a small Arcadian village in Peloponnese. She writes poems, articles, short stories, essays, novels, and review of book. She is also a translator of books of poetry.
She is a life member of the “World Academy of Arts and Culture” / “World Congress of Poets” (which awarded her the title of the Honorary Doctor of Literature) and of the IWA (International Writers Association). She is a member of the “World Poets Society” (WPS) and of the “Asociacion Mundial de Escritores - AME” ofSpain(No. 3299).
Her poems, short stories and essays have appeared in foreign and Greek Anthologies, they have been translated into English, French, Italian, Albanian, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and have won prizes in national and international literary competitions. She selected by “The International Poetry Translation and Research Centre” and the Journal of “The World Poets Quarterly” one of “The International Best Translators2005”(China, 2006) and by the Greek Literary Club “Xasteron” as “The Best Greek Translator of the year2007”(March, 22, 2008). “Best Poet of the Year2012”by the IPTRC. Best translator of the year 2013 by the IWA.
ΜY VILLAGE’S PARTS
My heart knows
every part of my village.
It has crossed
and loved all of them.
With the laughter, the tear
at the end of my village
I’ll stay gazing out
and courage I’ll take.
With the breeze of my village
I’ll cool the sweltering hot
in the furnace of life
and that freshness will stay.
In the company of that
I will endure what will come.
Every part of my village,
my heart’s sacred mate.
GREECE
For you, my country, I’ll be proud for ever,
I have inside me a deep grief and a fervent wish.
I feel sorry for the glorious past that declines,
I feel sad for the present and the bad that leaves behind.
Your immortal monuments are not covered with dust ,
they are not destroyed by the earthquakes the chill doesn’t bother them.
Sounio, the Acropolis, your ancient theatres,
sing your glories and your achievements.
Your green mountains, your beautiful islands,
your helmets, your temples, your perfect beauty,
they have, my sweet country, the blessing of God,
the eternal light and joy, the perfect harmony.
Reflections of the sun on your blue waters,
the light of the moon on your holy grounds,
something of the mysteries, attractive, they reflect,
the dreams are like small boats that they are sailing the Aegean Sea.
My Greece, all through I can’t have enough of your light
and near the waters of your springs I relax a little.
Like a migrant bird I would like to go all over you,
singing, my country.
But my verses are poor to portray you,
they are unable to make the painting of your beauty.
You encourage my soul, you dismiss all of my pains,
walking on my heart’s road, I meet you.
ZONI
My village, you are small, picturesque, hamlet
in the edge of Gortynia.
My eyes fill with tears when I look at you,
I mourn for the devastation
that I see everywhere, when I see your houses,
wandering in your streets.
Your vineyards have become barren,
your olive trees don’t bear fruit
and in your yards flowers do not bloom
in the flower pots.
It was, in the past, the blessed years,
when all your windows were wide open.
Now, my beautiful village, your roads are closed
and a small number of villagers walk in your places.
Bitter memories in my mind
and how can I heal them?
But I wish you, my village Zounati, to come to life again.
To open your houses again, make your yards green
and fill your streets with children’s voices.
SPRING
Nature woke up and got dressed
its familiar colors,
air transports myriads scents,
fragrances of the flowers’
sun is playing on the earth.
Everywhere is the wisdom of God
and people fall silent.
THE POETS
Poets do not struggle
with bullets and knives,
they write verses, sing
and extend their hands.
They yield in inspiration
in the hours of loneliness,
they count with verses and strophes
fine weathers and storms.
Poets do not love
simply for love.
They write verses for naked bodies
before they touch them.
They are absorbed by love and swim
in love’s depths
and after, they write poems
for “the moment” that is lost…
MY SOLITUDE
I captured my solitude on a large sheet of paper.
Afterwards, I held it in my hands and I began to cut it into small pieces,
until all the paper became a great number of pieces thrown on the floor.
I pile them up and I set a fire.
I opened the window.
I took the ashes and scattered them out on the road.
Closing the shutters, I saw my solitude to spread on the side
walk her overcoat to spend the night.
In the morning, it will knock on my door again.
As every day….
A WISH
Inside me a grief fades away,
a heartbreak flickers,
as my dream’s light
shades leaves behind it.
It is dawning
in the poor heart’s aching shoulders,
my worries took
foreign streets.
And in the dawn of the New Year
I anticipate the LOVE
to crown victors
the laughter and the teardrop.
POETRY’S MATERIALS
A well – dressed verse
with a red, full of freshness
and fragrance carnation on the lapel
pops out right
in the crown to dance.
Two strophes start a feast
on the white paper.
On top, an underlined title
assigns the intention of the poem.
Rhymes, words, “moments”
are valuable and invaluable
materials for a Poet
to make an emotion,
to pay off a debt
and to defeat a chimera.
A CRACK
Shades that mark the corners
and whatever has remained
don’t become you.
Look up,
give wings in your look
to fly on the uppermost.
Wherever leads you the heart,
in any harbor and arms
anchor and rest.
When you will see a crack,
go there to get
near your dreams.
UNFORTIFIED SOUL
I surrender my soul,
to you reader,
imprinted
on the whiteness of paper,
unfortified.
Every page on unguarded door.
Words, lines, verses,
my ammunition.
I bow with lightening dismantled
in front of you reader.
Indulgence I don’t beg for
and hostage at last
I let out myself
in your judgment.
FATHERLAND
For many years now,
he regards the foreign country
his second home.
But in his heart,
an eternal love
nests forGreece.
A handful of the native soil,
a small branch of lemon tree
and a seashell fromAegean Sea
antidotes of forgetting.
Besides the icons he keeps,
in a small box,
the soil, the seashell, the flowers,
mementos from his fatherland.
SPACE OF DREAMS
The unnecessary found
its place nowadays.
We live the not essential every day.
Contemporary man finds
the only refuge
in the space of dreams.
There, he surrenders in wonderful,
inexpressible things
and ephemeral creations.
Nowadays: DEFEND with dreams.
OPPOSE to baseness.
WORRY for hearts
ceased flourishing.
MOMENTS OF LIFE
Our soul pass
on impassable roads.
Our body looks for
the “light” of pleasure.
The wind does not blow
for a faraway voyage.
Every hour brings forth
what we don’t want.
Corners full of shadows
in the narrow streets
of the world.
Painful hearts
and nowhere hope.
Our life, a boat
with the sails set
that didn’t weigh anchor.
And hangs around our soul
in paths of dreams,
in unexplored places
and other heavens.
A SUMMER’S LOVE
In the middle of the summer
her heart yields from Love.
This is something unexpected.
She wished: “It will go soon,
it will disappear”.
She closed her eyes wishing good – bye
to the August etesian winds.
Autumn came and love stays yet
in the same place.
“Come” beckons her.
“Follow me. Trust me”.
Yields her heart light,
cheated out of lust and sweetness.
“Until you leave” she thought,
“I want to live with my dream”.
And she followed tile tracks
that her yearning leaves
behind on the seashore
of the temporary happiness…
SOUNIO
I still remember
that August afternoon at Sounio.
The waves to engrave the reef,
tourists taking photographs
of the eternal marbles of the temple,
the breeze mixing up our hair.
Love playing hide and seek
between the columns
and our the gaze
absorbing by endless blue.
A summer remembrance
– of a transient love -
an August afternoon at Sounio.
BLUE
A piece of sky
I brought down
to offer you, my darling,
to play and forget.
FromAegean Sea
I brushed away the blue
with the piece of sky
to match.
To hold both in your hands,
to play and forget.
You don’t know what it means
to love but not be loved.
FATHERLAND
For many years now,
he regards the foreign country
his second home.
But in his heart,
an eternal love
nests forGreece.
A handful of the native soil,
a small branch of lemon tree
and a seashell fromAegean Sea
antidotes of forgetting.
Besides the icons he keeps,
in a small box,
the soil, the seashell, the flowers,
mementos from his fatherland.
ZACHAROULA GAITANAKI ------------
SPACE OF DREAMS
The unnecessary found
its place nowadays.
We live the not essential every day.
Contemporary man finds
the only refuge
in the space of dreams.
There, he surrenders in wonderful,
inexpressible things
and ephemeral creations.
Nowadays: DEFEND with dreams.
OPPOSE to baseness.
WORRY for hearts
ceased flourishing.
© ZACHAROULA GAITANAKI, Greece
She has published the books:
1.- “DISSIMILAR LANDSCAPES” (Poetry collection),Athens, 2001.
2.- “POTIS KATRAKIS, A PROLIFIC WRITER” (Essay), Athens 2003.
3.- “STATHIS GRIVAS – WRITING FOR LIFE - Tracking in his poetical space”
(Essay), editions “Platanos”,Athens, 2006.
4.- «200 YEARS ZONI (1810 - 2010)», a special edition (with 59 photos),
“Morfotikos Exoraistikos Syllogos Zonis ofArcadia”, 2010
5.- “POTIS KATRAKIS – ROUTE TO CREATION”, (Essay), Athens 2012,
Editions “Lexitipon”.
e- mail: zgaitanaki@yahoo.gr
You can visit her web sites: http://homepages.pathfinder.gr/poiitikigonia
http://douridasliterature.com/PoetryArkadia.html www.zounati.wordpress.com
www.apostaktirio.gr/ Βιογραφικά Λογοτεχνών
