The Greek Anthology, marvellous salvage from the vast shipwreck of the Ancient World, is a collection of around 4500 poems composed over more than 1500 years by about 300 authors, a colossal continuity and variety from pre-classical times through Roman into Byzantine. For A Bird Called Elaeus – his small anthology of the vast original – David Constantine has gone not just to the renowned love poems but also to poems that treat man’s dealings with the earth, his work and trades there, the creatures other than himself who inhabit it and the divinities whose care it is.
A Bird Called Elaeus is David Constantine’s seventh translation from Bloodaxe, following three editions of Friedrich Hölderlin, and collections by Henri Michaux, Philippe Jaccottet and Hans Magnus Enzensberger, including two books for which he received the European Poetry Translation Prize and the Corneliu M. Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation.
David Constantine was one of the first poets to be published by Bloodaxe, making his debut in 1980 with A Brightness to Cast Shadows, just two years after the press was founded. His Collected Poems (2004) was followed by three later collections: Nine Fathom Deep (2009), Elder (2014), and his eleventh collection, Belongings, in October 2020. Two months later he was announced as winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2020.
The Poetry Medal Committee recommended David Constantine as the recipient of the Medal on the basis of his eleven books of poetry, in particular his Collected Poems, published in 2004, which spans three decades of his work. The Committee was chaired by UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, who himself received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry for 2018. Full story here.
Feature in The Guardianhere. Alison Flood spoke to both David Constantine and to his poetry publisher of 40 years, Neil Astley of Bloodaxe Books.
Scroll down to watch a video of David Constantine's joint online launch reading on 8 November and a separate film in which he reads from and discusses A Bird Called Elaeus in great depth.
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ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
London Grip, online 7 January 2025
A close reading of David Constantine’s new translation A Bird Called Elaeus went online in London Grip on 7 January 2025. Edmund Prestwich compares David’s translations of poems from The Greek Anthology with previously published versions.
'... I recommend it above all for the brilliance with which its translations bring those worlds and their poetry to life. I believe people with little or no existing interest in ancient Greek writing will be won over by these versions’ beauty and force.' – Edmund Prestwich, London Grip, on A Bird Called Elaeus
An excellent detailed review is featured at the top of the January 2025 issue of The High Window.
'It is wonderful to discover so many ancient poets (when so many others have been lost) and this is a book to treasure.' – Merryn Williams, The High Window
Bloodaxe joint online launch event, Friday 8 November 2024
David Constantine joined Marie Howe and Philip Gross as all three poets read from their new books and discussed their work with each other and with Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
