Friday 17th April
6.30-9pm
The ancient Greek word for tragedy (τραγωδία) is a compound of goat (τράγος) and song (ᾠδή). In Phoebe Giannisi’s Goatsong, translated by Brian Sneeden, the seam that connects human and animal, myths and history, is the body. In Giannisi’s language, life obeys myth. A man places a screaming cicada in his mouth, reminding us of a scene from Plato’s Phaedrus, where Socrates claims cicadas to have been humans who became entranced by the invention of singing, and didn't stop to eat or drink. When the goddess Thetis dips her newborn son, Achilles, into the River Styx to protect all but his famous heel where her hand grips, we’re told ‘the place of the mother’s grip / is the mark of death.’ From Homer to Donna Haraway, Derrida to state archives, klephtic ballads and rebetiko, to Parmenides and Giannisi’s dog, Ivan, the many human and animal voices of Goatsong form an incantatory lyricism and layered engagement unique in literature.
'Reading Phoebe Giannisi is like reading pre-Socratic philosophy on all fours, where flies buzz on and off the page and the polyphony of species and elements is both dazzling subject and all-encompassing medium.’ — Daisy Lafarge, author of Paul
Join Phoebe Giannisi for a discussion about her collection Goatsong, along with the translator Brian Sneeden and the poet Clare Pollard.