Markos Meskos

Markos Meskos (1935-2019) was born in Edessa. He completed his primary and secondary education in Edessa and subsequently worked at his father's store, writing poetry from his teenage years. His first appearance in the literary world was in 1956 with the poem "Peace," published in the magazine "Art Review" (issue 13, January 1956), under the pseudonym Koulis Avgerinos (he also used the literary pseudonyms Dimitris Grammatikos and Petros Milionis). In 1957, he joined the editorial team of the magazine "Testimonies." His first poetry collection, "Before Death," dates back to 1958. In 1965, he permanently moved to Athens to study at the Athens Technological Institute of the Doxiadis School. He lived there until 1980, working, among other things, as a graphic designer in advertising agencies and as a publishing editor. In 1981, he moved to Thessaloniki and became a founding member of the editorial team of the magazine "Manuscripts" and later, between 1987-1993, was responsible for the Agricultural Cooperative Publications (ASE). He published his poems, prose, and studies in various magazines, including "Art Review," "Poets' Newspaper," "New Era," "New Hearth," "New Course," "The Writer," "Testimonies," "Notes," "Biweekly Citizen," "Anti," "Elitrochos," "The Tree," "Letters and Arts," among others. The first phase of Meskos's poetry is related to the traumatic historical experiences of the 1940s and is imbued with a sense of unity between the poet and his birthplace, the human subject, and nature. The concept of resistance runs throughout his literary production, and while in his early collections it crystallizes in forms of Greek tradition, such as those of Digenis or the Klephts, it gradually tends more and more towards abstraction. Other characteristics of his poetry include the intrusion of historical time into personal space and the intertwining of personal and collective. His accolades include the poetry award from the magazine "Diavazo" for the collection "Greetings" in 1995, the poetry award from the Kostas and Eleni Ouranis Foundation of the Academy of Athens in 2006 for his entire body of work, and the State Poetry Award in 2013 for the collection "The Ransom." His poems have been translated into foreign languages. In 1981, the first collected edition of his poems, written from 1958 to 1980, was published by Ypsilon Editions under the title "Black Forest." The book was reissued with the same title twice, each time expanded: in 1999 by Nefeli Editions and in 2011, in two volumes, by Gavriilidis Editions. Gavriilidis Editions also published his collected "Prose" in 2013 and "Personal Texts" in 2014. His latest books included the essay "Advocacy of Poetry" (Kichli, 2015), the collection of prose "In Vodeni: Texts Not for Sale from the Hinterland of Edessa" (Edessa, 2016), and the poetry collections "Alpha Beta" (Kichli, 2015), "On the Shore of Paradise" (To Rodakio, 2016), and "Dreams in Hades" (To Rodakio, 2018). He passed away in Thessaloniki on January 1, 2019, at the age of 83. (photo: Kostas Mitropoulos)