Exercises 1950–1960 by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Spring Ulmer Holly Pester transforms herself into an island

transforms herself into an island in a stormy sea

You’ll meet the essential goodness of the émigrés on the streets

but show a drift towards greater depths of open emotion

Steeped in the natural world and sensitive to how each body interfaces with the world

Exercises 1950–1960 by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Spring Ulmer Holly Pester transforms herself into an islandPublished 1st November 2025. Yannis Ritsos wrote Exercises 19501960 after being tortured and detained during the Greek Civil War. Incredibly, the poems are filled not with bitterness but with amazementat a solitary leaf, a rope ladder, rose and grey light. Alongside such tenderness, of course, the nation state stretches out in the sun, teeth bared. What to say about the human condition? Not long after completing these poems, Ritsos was again