Renaissance

Known in Europe for his spare, precise, and emotionally charged poetry, acclaimed Greek poet Haris Vlavianos paints 36 quixotic poem-portraits of Renaissance figures to remind us that the past is always present. In the first of his books to be published in the US, Vlavianos focuses on a central period of turbulence and renewal in European history through the ventriloquised voices of both well-known and marginal characters of the time. Renaissance traces their hopes, dreams, and disappointments, their acquiescence and resistance to various orthodoxies, holding up a mirror to our own moment of parallel tensions. From Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's 'sin' of renunciation, to Louise Labe's defiant 'cackle' and Giotto's arrogant 'perfect circle,' these limpid poems explore the multitude of ways that the arts, in the broadest sense of the word, can help us re-imagine ourselves and the world we live in.