Interviewed by: Eleana Zhako
Maria Patakia is a multidimensional personality. She intertwines poetry, theatre, and cinema with her profession as a lawyer at the European Commission. She is the author of four poetry volumes and two prose books currently in the process of publication. Maria’s life is divided among Brussels, Athens, the island of Syros, and Paris, which constitute significant stations of her cultural, professional, and private life. I met Maria in 2012 when I had the honor of being her intern in the fields of environment and energy as well as in drafting legal documents, but we were mostly connected by our shared passion for literature. Now, 11 years later, alongside translating some of her poems into Albanian published in previous issues of Revista Letrare, I have the pleasure to interview her for RL. (This interview was first featured in Revista Letrare 3/24)
Interviewer: This interview coincides with the recent death of your mother at the age of 102. One of the central themes of your poetry volumes is the concept of time and the relationship with it. Your mother managed to deceive time, but like every human being, she couldn’t defeat it. Since poetry lives longer than the poet, does the concept of time somehow construct the desire for the eternalisation of the ephemeral?
Maria Patakia: Time is indeed my literary and existential obsession, one of the main themes of my poetry. Furthermore, it constitutes the title of my first poetry volume. I don’t seek my eternalisation through poetry (I am not one of those poets who will be read for centuries to come). I want to express the temporariness of beauty, love, and existence, which paradoxically contains fragments of eternity. They are essential outbursts that time halts. I believe poetry, which shares rhythm and meter with time, particularly expresses the relativity of time’s grip. Time surrounds us, highlights, but also limits our actions, feelings, and existence.
Interviewer: Your first poetry volume “Time Walkers” (Melani 2016) was published when you were in a very mature period of your personal and professional life. Beyond the usual literary hesitations authors have, what were your reasons for this long hesitation before deciding to knock on the publisher’s door?
Maria Patakia: Because I judged that the conditions within me had not matured – conditions that do not necessarily align with a person’s natural maturity and age. This is another indicator of how relative time is and how differently it is perceived by each of us. Also, the need to communicate through poetry, which is a necessary condition for those who want to publish, had not matured within me.
Interviewer: Do you feel any regret today that you didn’t publish your poems earlier?
Maria Patakia: I am aware of and have necessarily accepted the disadvantages: someone might not classify me in a generation of poets – because I belong simultaneously to two different generations in terms of age and time of publication – and also may not generate the same interest as a younger poet because I don’t have enough time for development. This paradoxical outcome may be caused by the relativity of time. It doesn’t make sense to regret something since my personal conditions were not mature enough for it to happen.
Interviewer: Do you think that the relationship between quality and quantity in poetry is asymmetrical? In the sense that a large quantity affects the reduction of quality and excessive focus on quality lowers the quantity and time dedicated to creativity? Is poetry mainly a matter of inspiration?
Maria Patakia: “Ουκ εν τω πολλώ το ευ” (Uk en to polo to ef – Quantity does not matter) is said in ancient Greek, but this also contains a kind of relativity. Quality and quantity are always in a delicate balance. Inspiration is the driving force in the production of poetry. However, to complete the production requires a lot of effort and processing of thoughts and feelings to form words.
Interviewer: You now have two short prose works ready for publication. Since I mainly know you as a poet, I’m curious to know: have you written prose before? What difference do you see compared to poetry in terms of the process and working method?
Maria Patakia: It was not easy for me to write prose until recently. My expressive tools did not push me towards it. But even now, the texts that will be published cannot be called pure prose; it is a hybrid genre at the boundaries of poème en prose with elements of autofiction and essayistic thinking.
Of course, there are fundamental differences between poetry and prose both in creation and in the working method, related to the existence or not of a plot structure, etc. However, there are also some grey areas where one technique influences the other, and the boundaries become indistinguishable (for example, there are prose texts with a pronounced poetic nature as well as “narrative” poems with a clear narrative style that approach prose).
Interviewer: So far, you have four poetry books and two prose works that will soon be released. If someone were to ask you about your creative identity, would you respond with the general term “writer” or poet? How do you self-identify?
Maria Patakia: For the aforementioned reasons and because the texts being published do not entirely belong to the genre of prose in the classical sense, I think I will continue to identify as someone who writes poetry.
Interviewer: They say that over time, a person of literature tends to read more prose and less poetry. The same thing happens in the creative process. Is this true in your case?
Maria Patakia: Yes, this happens because prose is easier to absorb by the reader. Poetry requires higher involvement, greater emotional and intellectual readiness due to its semantic density and abstraction. My creative journey – for the reasons I mentioned – I don’t think will lead me towards pure prose.
Interviewer: Which poets have influenced your literary and creative worldview the most?
Maria Patakia: Regarding poets, there are many I have admired and been influenced by, as “our words are of many people.” From the Greeks, Kavafis, Kalvos, and Elitis pushed me towards poetry from my very early years. Later, I was influenced and felt poetically closer to Kiki Dimoula, Nikos Karouzos, and Nikos Alisanoglou. From the foreigners: T.S. Eliot, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and the more recent Christian Bobin.
Interviewer: In 2021, a selection of poems from your three poetry volumes was published in French by “Le Miel des Anges Editions” with the title “Arpenteurs du temps et autres recueils” by the renowned French translator from Greek, Michel Volkovitch. What can you tell us about this? You are an excellent French speaker, but did collaborating with the translator help you delve deeper into the art of translation and convey the resonances in French?
Maria Patakia: Yes, I had the honour of being translated by Michel Volkovitch, the talented translator dedicated to making Greek poetry known to the French reader. Naturally, my knowledge of French facilitated our wonderful collaboration. However, since I have great trust in him, my intervention was minimal. Moreover, I believe that translation constitutes a unique and distinct poetic creation.
Interviewer: Have you considered engaging professionally in translation? Is there a risk of diluting a creator’s identity for an author who dedicates more to translation than to their own creation?
Maria Patakia: I have started translating poetry and poetic essays myself, not systematically and professionally, but out of love for some poets and to exercise linguistically. However, I can in no way consider myself a professional translator.
Interviewer:If I’m not mistaken, the Greek poet Seferis said that a creator in everyday life should exercise a different profession from that of a writer to avoid oversaturation. Did your role as a legal advisor for many years in Brussels at the Central Legal Service of the European Commission serve your creativity in this regard? Did legal discipline help with poetic discipline?
Maria Patakia:I don’t know if a poet should exercise a different profession, but from a practical standpoint, it is almost necessary because it is impossible to live from poetry. But beyond the practical aspect, another professional engagement enriches experiences and emotions. In my case, I think my legal training and engagement favoured poetry. Justice helps in disciplining expression, in the density and clarity of words, which are essential components of poetry.
Interviewer: For many years, you have played a leading role in the Greek cultural association of Brussels, “Kiklos” (The Circle), which promotes various Greek authors who travel from Greece and other countries to Brussels at the association’s expense. Do you believe that thanks to the work of this association, the interest of the Greek reader in Brussels for Greek literature and history has increased? How important are live literary presentations in the age of the internet?
Maria Patakia: The goal of our association “The Circle” is precisely this: to bring the public of Brussels, not just the Greek one, into contact with literature, history, and contemporary cultural developments in Greece. Thanks to the great work being done, I believe and hope we are increasingly closer to this objective.
Regarding live promotions, I believe their value remains stable in the internet age. Warm and direct human contact is a diachronic and stable need.
Interviewer: Your daughter, Daphne Patakia, is one of the most promising young actresses in European cinema, having collaborated with important directors like Paul Verhoeven, Tony Gatlif, and Yorgos Lanthimos, among others. So, you are not just the poet Maria Patakia but also the mother of a Greek-French cinematic star. Has your direct connection as a family with cinema influenced your broader recognition?
Maria Patakia: As a cinephile mother, I am very proud of my daughter, and her fame may
reflect on me, but not in terms of my poetic identity, although I have the honour and joy that she often mentions me in her interviews and sometimes reads my poems publicly.
Interviewer: Do you comment on her performances, and does she comment on your poems?
Maria Patakia: Of course, we often discuss. We exchange thoughts and impressions about everything we do in our respective fields, but each of us has the responsibility for our own choices.
Interviewer: But your relationship with acting started long before you were called a “cinephile” mother since you have been acting in theatre for many years, although you are not a professional actress. When did you start engaging in theatre? Have you ever counted the performances you’ve participated in?
Maria Patakia: Yes, I started engaging in theatre as an amateur actress since 1988, and although I haven’t counted exactly, I must have performed in 25-30 plays so far.
Interviewer: Did you ever think of pursuing it professionally?
Maria Patakia: No, never. I adored theatre from a young age, encouraged by my father, who was a passionate theatre lover. From that age, I regularly attended theatre, but it took me a long time to act because I had a significant reluctance that haunted me. Moreover, I don’t believe I had much talent. I only felt love for theatre, which is also a form of poetry.
Interviewer: Your daughter’s relationship with the seventh art is somehow connected to her engagement as a child actress in various theatre groups in Brussels?
Maria Patakia: Yes, she always mentions in her interviews that she started acting at the age of seven in the children’s section of an amateur troupe in Brussels, and since then, she fell in love with performing, initially in theatre and later in cinema.
Interviewer: This is the first time you are giving an interview for an Albanian literary magazine, and for the first time, the Albanian reader has become acquainted with your poetry through this magazine. Have you read any Albanian authors? If yes, what impression has our literature left on you?
Maria Patakia: Yes, this is my first interview for an Albanian magazine, and I thank you very much for the honour! Also, for translating and publishing my poems! Through you, I have been introduced to the Albanian reader for the first time, and I have set a goal for myself to get to know more of your authors. To be honest, until now, I have only read Ismail Kadare and two contemporary authors: Ardian Vehbiu, whose promotion I participated in a few years ago at the Thessaloniki International Book Fair, and Ylli Demneri.
Interviewer: I believe many years have passed since you read Kadare. Nowadays, his books in Greece do not have the same impact on the Greek reader. Since he is very well known in France and has often been on the list of Nobel Prize candidates, do you remember if his style left any special impression on you when you first read him? What do you think of the two contemporary authors you mentioned earlier?
Maria Patakia: I read Kadare many years ago when he started becoming known in Greece, and I was impressed by his style and chosen themes, but he indeed belongs to another era now, and I was at a different age. I don’t know how it would seem to me now. I think it is interesting to reread him.
As for the two other authors, of course, the shared experiences from their life in Albania and abroad give their literature its distinctiveness. The book “Mr. Shyti’s Interventions” by Vehbiu has a philosophical and linguistic nature where irony predominates as a literary figure. While “I Remember” by Ylli Demneri has the form of a literary diary infused with lyricism and nostalgia. Fragmentation is the element that unites their different styles. Both authors had something original in their approach, despite the fact that in terms of structure, as they have themselves stated, they are respectively based on “Mr. Keuner’s Stories” by Bertolt Brecht and “I Remember” by George Perec. Discovering them was something beautiful. But I am not a proper literary critic; I speak more as a reader.
Interviewer: The idea of translating your poems or prose into Albanian, what feeling does it evoke in you?
Maria Patakia: Of course, I like it. It would be a great honour and joy for me for my books to be translated into Albanian, as has happened so far only with some poetic cycles. The fact that I don’t know the language doesn’t change anything as long as I have trust in the translators. On the contrary, the idea is very appealing and aesthetically interesting – the foreign sound and the image of the unknown alphabet (poetry is both sound and music but also an image).
Interviewer: Now the Albanian public knows you a little more. I am pleased with this and would like to close this interview with something of yours.
Maria Patakia: Thank you, and I will close with a recent thought: “Words that strive to embody and shape feelings and impressions serve to aesthetically surround forgetfulness in a beautiful form.”
