Diaries of Exile

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Just days after the last entry in Diary of Exile II, Yannis Ritsos — future recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize, a few months shy of his fortieth birthday and already the author of several of the dozens of volumes of poetry, drama and prose he would eventually produce — wrote this letter:

February 3, 1949 — My dear sweet little Kaitoula — three letters from you all at once (from January 13, 14 and 15) — what joy, what joy — what celebrations — that’s how you should write to me — my loneliness fills — I’m close to you — we chat. Today there’s cold and wind — what wind — you can’t take even a single step outside — an endless hum — the snow swirls — it doesn’t stop — an awful vitality and power — you’re in the heart of “eternal nature,” and your own heart calls out in response — hum meeting hum — we have to create something big — very big — I’m sure, my life, that you feel it too — “we must silence the lightning — speak our name there where the roads listen to no other words” — I wrote that somewhere. Your first poem came, too. There are good elements — but it doesn’t begin and it doesn’t end. The beginning is the most important. Listen, Kaitoula — the image is always a means and not an end in itself — we’ve said this before — you know it — you should avoid mere decoration — Don’t cover up your heart — when there’s no heart, there’s nothing at all — of course heart alone isn’t enough — but it shouldn’t be missing, either. Guard against the allure of the word, which always leads to verbosity — but don’t ever neglect that allure in the name of an emotion or of spontaneity. Palamas wrote to me in a letter: “art doesn’t divide — it unites.” Yes, yes. Art and technique, then — heart and mind — and something more — how can I put it? — I need time and space — and where are they?

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