Chimera

By Phoebe Gianissi

In her third collection in English, Phoebe Giannisi lays out her vision for a chimeric poetics that blends field recordings, state archives, and ancient texts. The center of Chimera engages with a three-year field research project on the goat-herding practices of the Vlachs, a nomadic people of Northern Greece and the Southern Balkans, who speak their own language. In these poems, day-to-day activities such as shearing and shepherding mix with snippets of conversations, oral tradition, and song--locating a larger story in this ancient marriage between humans and animals. Through her poetry and fieldwork, this mytho-historical connection between metamorphosis and utterance takes form in what the Greek newspaper Kathimerini calls "a bold achievement....a studio wherein poems and other texts, other voices, become exhibited."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811237826
• ISBN13: 9780811237826
• Release Date: July 2024
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.5"