Tasos Porfyris

Tasos Porfyris was born in 1931 in Agios Kosmas Pogoniou (formerly Kakousious or Kaxious). In 1938, he moved to Athens, where his father had opened a pastry shop with his cousin at 24 3rd September Street. In the winter of 1941, he returned to his village. By the winter of 1945-1946, he had permanently settled in Athens, where he graduated from the Second Middle Commercial School in Patissia in 1949. He made his literary debut in 1961 with the poetry collection "Nemertska" (Gementzopoulos Editions). This was followed by the poetry books "The Abandoned House" (Thesmos, 1968), "Flash Back" (Lysis, 1971), "Landscape" (Lysis, 1973), "The Fifth Exodus" (Notes, 1980), "The Wounded" (Erasmus, 1996), "Body of Danger" (Ypsilon, 2004), "Desolate" (Ypsilon, 2008), "Chronocollector" (Ypsilon, 2011), "The Wounds Within Us" (Ypsilon, 2015), and the prose collections "The Tooth" (Sokolis, 2006) and "The Houses" (Panoptikon, 2013). He was a member of the editorial team of the magazines "Testimonies," "Proposals," and "Notes," and collaborated with many magazines ("Lysis," "Figos," "Epirus Chronicles," "Epirus Diaries," "Zosimades," "New Borders," "Plateau," "Planodion," etc.). He translated foreign poetry for magazines: from English, the poems of E. Pound, T.S. Eliot, D. Thomas (in collaboration with St. Rozanis, magazine "Lysis" - issues 1, 2, and 3, 1967, 1968, and 1969), from French, the poetry of Jean Tardieu (in collaboration with Rena Kosseri, magazine "Lysis," issue 6, 1970), as well as the poetry of Czech poets Antonin Bardusek, Vitezlav Nezval, Zosef Hanglik (magazine "New Borders," issues 69-70) and Chilean Nicanor Parra (magazine "Figos," issue 16, Ioannina 2003). His poems have been translated into foreign languages (anthology "Poetas Siglo XXI-Antologia Mundial," etc.). In 2013, Ekdoseis ton Filon published a collected edition of his poems titled "Nemertska: Poems 1961-2011." He also edited the anthologies "Polyphonic: Anthology of Epirus Poetry" (Prefecture of Ioannina, 2002), "Anthology of Rain: Poems by 107 Poets, Greek and Foreign" (Tropikos-Papadopoulos, 2003), and "If You Thirst, I Will Become Water for You: The Poet Dimitris Papaditsas (1922-1987)" (Gavriilidis, 2018), and published critical studies on poets Dimitris Papaditsas, Anthos Pogonitis (Vasilis Karafyllis), among others.