In the eighth of his Twelve Poems for Cavafy (Dodeka Poiemata yia Kavafy, 1974 ) entitled 'Misunderstandings, ' the Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos assures his readers that the older, deceased Alexandrian poet is clearly out to entangle us in his singular complexity. By now, almost four decades later, this complexity, often conveyed through a poetic medium that seems on its surface relatively simple, defines and sustains his preeminent status among poets of the last one hundred and fifty years. Ritsos spoke of the man in order to speak of the poet, as if they are indissolubly bonded, just as we habitually do despite the hard fact of knowing the poet alone survives and succeeds the man. The complexity we share with Cavafy endures in the complexity of his poetry and our engagement with it.
This book contains 162 poems - the 154 canonical Collected Poems, presented by year and within each year's order of composition and/or first printing, plus seven of the Uncollected Poems interspersed chronologically among them. Only one of his rejected, early poems has been included, 'Ode and Elegy of the Street, ' used here as a kind of overture to the collection.
