© Poeticanet 

 

 

 

AG: Your work often exists at the intersection of poetry and performance. How did you first come to see performance as an essential extension of your poetic voice, rather than simply a way of presenting written text?

GZ: I use poetry as a master discipline, language and poetics as architecture and arts, letters as resonance... As such, the “it” or rather poetry in this case, must be tested, employed, synthesized, harmonized and experimented with, again and again...for I am eternally re-minded; re-member M. Vitruvius Pollio's advice, letters, “...An architect should be equipped with multi-disciplinary knowledge, for it is his/her judgment that all other artistic works are put to the test. The child of knowledge (and I would include wisdom here too) is/are practice and theory.”[i]

Thus, as a polymath, poetry takes many shapes for me...as poet, playwright and literary translator, serial creative, etc. Poetry can shape and reshape dramatury, opera, dance, music, the Classics, as well as, our cultural collective consciousness giving space, shape and from to performance arts whether that be new expressions and/or Classical reception thereof. Its a natural progression, expansion of 'arte experimentale' while redrawing boundaries and testing possibilities.

AG: In your poetic performances, how does the presence of the body reshape the meaning of the poem? Do gesture, movement, and voice reveal dimensions that remain latent on the page?

GZ: The semiotics of performance and the body speak the language of poetry in motion, as well as, poetry speaks with/to/through the body and performance, but not only.

Re: gesture, movement, and voice … I would say yes and no in the same breath. I have seen the three reveal themselves in 2D, 3D and even 5D (dimensional capacities). Of course, the perception of the experience is subjective to the reader, seeker and/or performer for the mirror of life is always reflecting. Alas, for me as writer/creator/performer, I believe it essential to build multiple layers (as architect) that speak with/to/through the the author, the body of work and audience. Poets are bards which channel art and letters from the Divine; tuning voice and verse into resonance, harmonic frequency “for the greater good of Humanity” to borrow Alfred Nobel's magnanimous ideology.

Especially, voice... The Human voice has so much potential to be re-discovered as it is mostly, under developed and underrated. I would posit, as consciousness rises, Humanity re-members and re-learns more of their gifts and the capabilities thereof. Take the Opera Singer who has a diverse octave range and can shatter glass with the voice or song. The Quantum Mechanics are straight foreword. Harmonize or tune the voice in sympathetic resonance with that frequency of the glass, and they co-exist but when the frequency of the voice and the energetics of the glass, exist un-harmonically, the glass distorts, transforms, breaks. Similar to a friendship, like energies attract while unlike energies repel. Likewise, the cancer cell cannot exist within the body of a harmoniously alkaline bio-energetic field. Vitruvius also speaks of this Harmony via his Six Principles through an architectural philosophy.

AG: Many of your performances create an intimate yet charged space between you and the audience. How do you approach this relationship, and to what extent does audience presence influence the unfolding of the poem?

GZ: It has been noted in review, that my work speaks through “dramatic voice and verse”[ii] and my work with Classical forms such as the sonnet, speak “...of history, the arts and science, and prove the sonnet is more than merely a song love, that it can a must contain a multitude of voices and address infinite concerns”[iii]

I perceive this relationship as dialogue, always a dialogue even if reading in monologue. Why? Because the me is really the “we” whether is be you and me; me and the audience and/or the me and the seemingly void which is more voluminous that the seemingly occupied space, for the permanence of the mesh of the universe is always listening[iv]. Like water, she is memory and Mnemosyne[v]. Words are very powerful tools. They can part the sea[vi], lull a babe to sleep and/or wield sonnets like sword: sharp, poignant and direct.

AG: How does temporality function in your work? Unlike the fixed form of a printed poem, performance exists in time and then disappears—how does this ephemerality inform your poetics?

GZ: Re: Temporality functions on multiple levels in my work. I approach my words, poetics and poetry with the philosophy of a mediation, akin to a Stoic. All the while reminding oneself that the past is not fixed (rather the perception of) and the consciousness thereof can be re-written, re-shaped and transformed by words, actions and re-actions via the present-future. Thus, the precipice for my progression of μύθος και λόγος in my work and specifically, the operetta/libretto in performance of Therapy with Antigone and Antigone the Heroic Crown[vii], which is premised on Sophocles' daughter of Humanity, Antigone, are written in the form of the Heroic Crown of Sonnets (ie. a rare Italian Renaissance form that was designed by the architects of the Sienna Academy in 1460 alas no remaining prototypes exist).

Re: Ephemerality likewise functions on multiple levels also. The ephemeral has much space and place in my poetry, poetics and language. It co-exists in the 2D, 3D, 5D and... It has shape and is without shape similar to the “unmoved Mover”[viii]. Or likewise, as if it were a twin existence, both here and there are one concurrently which infer Quantum Entanglement. It is the is and not; the everything and nothing simultaneously while being the one plus one which equals three[ix].

AG: Do you conceive your performance as fragments of interpretations of pre-existing poems, or as autonomous poetic works that emerge fully only in performance? How does the writing process differ when you know the poem will be embodied?

GZ: They emerge both as fragments of interpretation and autonomous poetic works. Its as if they take on lives of their own or rather grow-into pluralistic dialogues and disciplines. Whether that be straight poetry in monologue or on the black of a page, to the narrator who is story-teller unto the child as story, myth or logos, as well as, drama in-situ theater, solo dance performance or fully cast operetta). The poetry takes on a life of its own and morphs into expansive modalities to carry the message, ping the past for the present-future and/or communicate through Classical, perennial archetypes as didactic dialogue.

Alas the writing process differs pending the necessity for it's shape and form. In fact, more often than not, I write the pure poetry first and then adapt to screen play or performance for commission (ie. the performance/operetta of Therapy with Antigone which was presented a the World Poetry Festival in 2023).

AG: Sound, silence, and breath seem to play a crucial role in your performances. How consciously do you compose these elements, and do you think of them as part of the poem’s language?

GZ: Sound, silence and breath are integral, essential and crucial in my poetics and performances for without sound, silence nor breath there is no life literally.

Thus, I am re-minded of the canonical, pre-Genesis where disorder; darkness and chaos are reshape by sound and silence. And the God said, “Let there be Light...” One is also re-members that art created in the external world mirrors our inner experiences through formal integrities by the artist who operates “in the shadow of the Divine”[x] Thus, in observation, the dialogue becomes a consciously conscious language with/to/through one's Higher Self and God, Source, Creator.

Sound, silence and breath are also what I used to shape my first (NEW) poetic form, which is named 'the Portico' and outlined in the treatise entitled, The Portico Convention. The poem employs sound – silence – sound, thus, emulating the facade of a Classical portico or porch such as the Erchection Temple atop the Athenian Acropolis. One of the first generation Portico poems is The Caryatids which is included here below. The structure incorporates the Golden Ratio for shape while the line verses are written in rhyming pentameter via partitioned couplets.

         
              The Caryatids
              for Edward Lear

 

                Portico of six                                   rhomb adjacent to
                Beauty eurhythmic                          adjoined carefully two

                Commitment lifetime                       obligation weighty
                All from Laconia                              maidens of the Caryae
 

                Proconsuls to another                     Agora spread below
                On head entablature                       sculpted figures in tow

                Sisters of Hellas                              less one via London
                Stolen like Helen                             usurped from home

                Girls of the nut-tree                         devots of Artemis
                Made for her temple                        encircled dance with reeds

                Enslaved for betrayal                      Persia versus Athena
                Treason that must stay                    basket head coronas

                Maybe the statues, they                  will be too tired to hold
                Shall concur one day                       this crumbling world

                Let’s go, don’t wait                          get-up and leave, girls
                Recreate our fate                            like dharma and pearls.

The first generation prototype that has been re-tweaked, was inspired by the Caryatids, their sculptures and their provenance sourced from Vitruvius’ De Architectura. Additional prototypes include the poems: Propylaia and The Portico for example. They were the first prototypes modeled which shape The Portico Convention treatise. Both poems, the Propylaia and The Caryatids are also inclusive of the debut poetry collection, Excavated Athens to Alexandria.

AG: Poetic performance often challenges conventional literary spaces and expectations. What possibilities—and perhaps risks—do you find in working between literary and performative traditions?

GZ: Perhaps its fair to say (ahahahaha), I am often challenging the conventional literary spaces, 'the gatekeepers' and expectations thereof while breaking old templates and suggesting the new “through fresh eyes”[xi]. And if the truth be told, this can be “risky and often risque, tender and tough, sophisticated yet sassy” coupled with the  unbridled willingness “not to be put in a box but rather perceive life beyond the box”[xii].

Short Biography

                Ginger F. Zaimis is an American poet, playwright, literary translator and scholar of the Classics who specializes in perennial archetypes and forms while reuniting the Humanities and Sciences. She is the author of seven books and multiple plays/performances which include Prometheus Rebound, Therapy with Antigone and The Divine Inquisition (a query as philosophical suggestion on the death of Alexander the Great). Ginger's grammatology explores the intersections of contemporary modernisms, comparative literature and philosophical translations from the Ancient Greek to English verse. Her philosophical verse translations speak with the Stoics, Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus written in Sestina, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations entitled as Speaking Stoic: Unto Myself (work-in-progress), as well as, Aristophanes' Frogs. Her work is lauded for connecting-the-dots via interdisciplinary tapestries of mythology and philosophy (with excerpts from Aeschylus, Homer and Sophocles to Aristotle, Plato, and the Corpus Hermetica), architecture, drama, performance and Romanticism (of Blake, P.B. Shelley, John Keats and Bryon). Her poetry is translated into Modern Greek, Bengali, Albanian and forthcoming into Arabic, Italian and Spanish. She is the architect of two new poetry forms (the Portico and Triptych), a Keats-Shelley Rome fellow and a Centre for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University scholar and Philhellene who speaks, reads and educates on themes advocating Humanity and the Humanities as thinker, writer and consciousness preservationist of the natural world.

Bibliography (Select)

• ΑΝΤΙΓΟΝΗ the Heroic Crown, ISBN: 978-618-86679-1-4; Poetry/Philosophy
• The Portico Convention (a NEW poetic form), ISBN: 978-1-938963-06-3 & 978-1-938963-07-0; Poetics/Philosophy/Architecture
• Philosophy and Poetry, co-authored w/ E. Moutsopoulos, 978-618-80327-1-2; Philosophy/Poetry
• Prometheus Rebound and Other Mythology, ISBN: 978-1-938963-33-9 & 978-1-938963-34-6; Poetry/Philosophy
• Therapy with Antigone and the Trilogy Verses, ISBN: 978-1-944682-40-8; Poetry/Philosophy
• Monumental Athens Urban, ISBN: 978-1-938963-02-5; Architecture
• Excavated Athens to Alexandria, 978-1-938963-04-9 & 978-1-938963-05-6; Poetry/Philosophy/Architecture

Keynote Talks, Readings, Performances & Exhibitions (Select)

Votive for Ειρήνη, Poetry for World Peace Conference, 2025

Antigone-in-Athens, in concerto w/ Baroque viola di gamba, Angelos Repapis

@Athens Art Gallery (2024)

Therapy w/ Antigone @Freud Museum London (2023)

Byron @200, Byron & Shelley the Italian, Greek Years @British School Athens (2024)

Asclepic the Mirroring @UP Festival, Patras, Greece (2023)

Myth,Choice & Destiny, @London Speaker Series (2024)

Therapy w/ Antigone, Performance, @World Poetry Festival (2023)

Axioms of Thought Connecting the Dots, Gabelli London Speaker Series, (2021)

The Romantics & Greece @Keats-Shelley Museum Rome (2017)

Keats & me: Dialogues with a Grecian Urn, Festival Of Ideas & Writing

@British School Athens (2023)

Between lines: Shakespeares Sonnets @London Speaker Series (2023)

#ODYSSEY2017, excerpts 2:00:20 w/ Elliniko Theatro @Megaron Athens (2017)

Excerpts of Aristophanes' Frogs @Bibliotheca Alexandrina (2019)

Prometheus Rebound and Other Mythology @The Athens Centre (2016)

Fairy Tale Logic @American School of Classical Studies Athens, Costen Hall (2016)

Balancing Mythos & Logos through Poetry, Centre for Greek Philosophy @Athens Academy (2016)

Excavated Athens to Alexandria @Parnassus Literary Society, Kostis Palamas Salon