The Orange Spotlight

The Margins of a Central Man by Yannis Livadas (Graffiti Kolkata, June 2010)

"What I am, a bucketful of stars
I kick it and spread
Fleeting impressions
Around the world."

The margins can mean a few things. I first thought it would be the words scribbled in
the spaces around memos and agendas during meetings through out the day. However,
afte reading through this new collection from Yannis Livadas and Graffiti Kolkata I see that Livadas means a different type of margin. It's the idea that your life has a central purpose but there are a multitude of events that pull your focus away.

Through out the collection Livadas dissects the life and thoughts of a poet. It is as if he is intent on figuring out what it means to write a poem, but he never actually makes the final realization. It's as if he is always just floating in the margins watching the poems appear. My favorite poem in the collection is called "The Man I Am" which contains the line "Books cut deeper than risks". The collections is darker and slightly totured. Livadas lives in Athens, and I am sure he does not speak for a nation, but the grim picture he paints seems both vivid and timely.

The Margins of a Central Man was recently released by Graffiti Kolkata and can be purchased here.

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