(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) ♪ It is not made for timid bodies ♪ (gentle music continues) ♪ The sensual rapture of this heat ♪ - I've been familiar with his poetry somewhat for a few years.

I'm not an expert in any way, but I certainly, you know, relate to his sense of romanticism and seduction and sensual pursuits.

- I can't ever remember Cavafy not being a part of my mind.

I would suspect that, then, that would mean that it was there for somewhere around 13, 12, 14.

In the United States, Cavafy is celebrated for many, many, many reasons, rightly so.

He is so deliberate and exquisite and delicious with his word choices and the way he constructs poems.

I'm a poet, and so if you wanna learn how to write really well, Cavafy is a person, even in English, that a lot of American poets go to.

He's a master and he takes his time.

(gentle music) (Petro speaking in Greek) (Petro speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (pensive music) - [Laurie] What does Ithacus mean?

(pensive music continues) (pensive music continues) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (vocalist singing in Greek) (vocalist singing in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (horns honking) (traffic whooshing) (Evi speaking in Greek) (Evi speaking in Greek) (Evi speaking in Greek) (Evi speaking in Greek) (patrons chattering faintly) (Evi speaking in Greek) (Evi speaking in Greek) (Evi speaking in Greek) (Evi speaking in Greek) (muezzin chanting in Arabic) (mysterious music) (mysterious music continues) (mysterious music continues) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (mysterious music continues) (mysterious music continues) (mysterious music continues) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (horns honking) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (pensive music) (vocalists singing in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (pensive music) (vocalists singing in Greek) (vocalists singing in Greek) (vocalists singing in Greek) (vocalists singing in Greek) (muezzin chanting in Arabic) (pensive music) (pensive music continues) (pensive music continues) - So I was invited to the festival to respond to Cavafy's archive, and when I first got there, the thing that kind of intrigued me most was this time that he'd spent over two years that he spent in Constantinople when he was a teenager.

There's actually like, you know, only a few items in the archive that talk about this time.

And the thing that I was kind of most charmed by was this small journal that he began keeping on his way from Alexandria to Constantinople.

That he titles "The Constantinopoliad," as if it's going to be an "Odyssey" or an "Iliad" or some grand poem.

There's this like amazing teenage grandiosity about it.

And he starts keeping the journal, and the first few days, he has these real, like amazing descriptions of everything that's going on, the boat.

And then the journal just gradually fades away.

You know, there's all these empty pages, there's these attempts at poems that he obviously hates and scribbles out again.

And then there's just torn out pages and blank pages and blank pages and blank pages.

And it became this way to think about absences in archives.

And this particular time in Cavafy's life, there isn't much documentation, but it's obviously a very important time for him and he's kind of figuring out who he is in this new city.

And it will come back to inform his poetry much later, but about that time itself, there's just not much material.

And so it felt like a really good kind of creative space to be able to play with the archive.

(gulls squawking) (gulls squawking) (mysterious music) (gulls squawking) (gulls squawking) (gulls squawking) So the idea of the blank space in the archive led us kind of to think about other particularly queer archives and the missing archives and the spaces in the archive and things that were happening around this time.

- A lot of people think Cavafy was only courageous about his sexuality.

He was openly queer in the 19th century, and the turn of the century, too.

And that's a big deal, right?

It's dangerous to be openly queer now, and it's over a century and a quarter later.

(Afroditi speaking Greek) (Afroditi speaking Greek) (Afroditi speaking Greek) (Juliana singing in Greek) (plaintive indie pop music) - But he's also very, very frank and very candid about a homoerotic desire, something that we sort of banish.

So you have a sense of this identity that is unable to identify itself.

And I think this is so important to us today, where everybody is willing to accept the fact that, you know, am I a boy or a girl?

Am I both?

Or sometimes I'm a boy, sometimes I'm a girl.

I'm fluid.

And we are all learning how to live with this fluidity in our identity.

And then there are people who refuse fluidity who say, "I'm this and not that."

Okay, fine.

Talk to me tomorrow when you change your mind.

- [Sister Sylvester] Cavafy wasn't gay.

The term, the identity didn't exist yet, but his own poetry and archive became part of the formation for a future queer identity.

(pensive music) He was, he said, clearing the ground, making space in words for people like me.

When you look at the Gorgon, you have to look askew, look obliquely, so as not to be turned to stone.

Cavafy's audience could not look directly at his desire.

We read his time from ours in a way that suggests a safeness, in being able to name an identity that didn't exist that Cavafy's poems helped to create.

Can we ever understand that danger?

Between the official ones, those who hold the congresses would wipe it off the scale.

When bodies are banned and books are burned and books are banned and bodies burned and ash and paper and stone, and the archive goes up in smoke.

(reader speaking in Greek) (Ozi speaking in Greek) (Ozi speaking in Greek) (mysterious music) (Ozi speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (pensive music) ♪ Without consideration, without pity, without shame ♪ ♪ They built walls around me, they took my life away ♪ ♪ Inside these walls, I sit with my despair, in my pain ♪ ♪ They built walls around me, they took my life away ♪ ♪ Oh, I can think of nothing else ♪ ♪ This fate, it eats my mind away ♪ ♪ Once I had a life to live ♪ But they built walls to close me in ♪ ♪ They built walls around me ♪ They built walls around me, they took my life away ♪ ♪ Oh, how could I not have seen ♪ ♪ The walls they built up around me ♪ ♪ How could I not have heard ♪ The builders close away the world ♪ ♪ They built walls around me (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (Christos speaking in Greek) (waves lapping) (waves lapping) (ship horn blows) (pensive music) - [Elena] Let me stand here and let me, too, look at nature a while, the morning seas and cloudless skies, radiant violet hues and yellow shore, all beautiful and brightly lit.

Let me stand here and let me deceive myself that I see them.

Indeed, I saw them for a moment when I first paused and that I don't see, even hear my fantasies, my memories, the ideal visions of sensual bliss.

(pensive music continues) (pensive music continues) (pensive music continues) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) - Cavafy's Archive, first of all, is so massive that you can only look at a little of it at a time.

And the Onassis Foundation has done an extraordinary job.

I mean, just, I'm still in awe of it, of preserving it, protecting it, digitizing it for the future generations.

Outrageous, right?

And so we were met with this large table of Cavafy ephemera, letters.

I mean, a lot of the archive, what I found in the archive, shows up in the poem that I wrote for him.

His mother's passport, for example, little doodles that he made on sheets of paper.

The letter from Virginia Woolf's husband, "I was being bad."

The letter from Leonard Woolf, you know, asking Cavafy to please let the Woolfs publish him, that kind of stuff.

And the thing, though, that struck me the most besides this incredible rich kind of material history in the archive, was that it was exuding, exuding the most beautiful desire in paper.

It was so lush.

It was so lush, right?

Every line, even his handwriting, how he would rewrite a poem so that it was more neatly written, - "Hang on, this sounds familiar.

(performers chattering indistinctly) And they all seem to be waiting for someone, these strangers or maybe some kind of enemy to show up.

So they're hanging around, waiting, trying to figure things out.

And then there's a kind of a surprise ending.

(pensive music) (performers chattering) What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are here today.

And why isn't anything going on in the Senate?

And why are the senators just sitting there without legislating?

Because..." (dramatic music) the barbarians are coming today.

♪ The barbarians are coming, the barbarians are coming ♪ ♪ The barbarian are coming - "Yeah, the barbarians are coming today, so what's the point of coming, waiting for senators to make laws now?

Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why, why did our emperor get up so early?

And why is he sitting in the throne at the city's main gate?"

♪ City's main gate (people chattering faintly) (people chattering faintly) (people chattering faintly) - Archive of Desire, our festival, inspired by the poet C.P.

Cavafy, has been a remarkable journey.

10 venues, 80 artists, and over two dozen commissions of new work.

This festival includes talks, a symposium, short films, digital pieces, theater, visual artworks, and concerts such as you will experience tonight.

Let us together acknowledge the work of this truly unique poet who recently celebrated his 160th birthday on April 29th.

(Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Anthony speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) - [Marianna] "Not for publication, but may remain here."

(Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (Marianna speaking in Greek) (pensive music) - "And then further down in the closing paragraph he wrote, 'I hope very much that you will consider this.'

Your letter back to him is written by hand on another sheet of paper attached to a poem you wrote.

This poem need not be published, but it may continue remaining here.

It does not deserve to be suppressed."

- It's been an incredible journey to get to know Cavafy also through the eyes of the foundation and then introduce him to an entirely new world here in New York City.

It's been a beautiful journey.

(Stathis speaking in Greek) (Stathis speaking in Greek) (Stathis speaking in Greek) (Stathis speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (Dimitris speaking in Greek) (dramatic music) (Elini singing in Greek) (Elini singing in Greek) (Elini singing in Greek) (Elini singing in Greek) (Elini singing in Greek) (Elini singing in Greek) (Elini singing in Greek) (Elini singing in Greek) (Petros speaking in Greek) (Petros speaking in Greek) (pensive music) ♪ And in saying it, he crosses over ♪ ♪ Over to his honored conviction ♪ (pensive music continues) ♪ He who refused us not repents ♪ ♪ He fasts again, he would once more say no ♪ ♪ And yet, that no, the right one ♪ ♪ And yet, that no, the right one ♪ ♪ And yet, that no, the right one ♪ ♪ Wave him down for all his light ♪ (performers clapping) - "What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

(Petros speaking in Greek) - The barbarians are to arrive today.

(Petros speaking in Greek) (traffic whooshing) (traffic whooshing) (traffic whooshing) - I connect with Cavafy's life and work, I think, as an independent artist, and what he did his entire life to make sure that his work, you know, was perceived in a certain way, edited in a certain way, and brought out to the world in a certain way and it's very specific kind of curation.

- Taking that sort of poetry piece and sort of really sort of thinking about it and processing it and thinking about it in relationship to my own work that's built around social justice, and so that was really the beginning of bringing these worlds together.

My senses have always come from this sort of political sort of space of inequality and justice and also has sort of concealed gender, race, class, forcing the viewer to look at something without judgment.

- Yeah, and I would say both of these artists, Nick as well as Cavafy, their work is about seeing, seeing somebody and letting somebody see themselves.

And so these are the perfect words to combine with that kind of imagery for anybody, everybody to see themselves in that work.

- And it's talking about freedom, it's talking about liberation, it's talking about an expression, and it's sort of allowing one to sort of be sort of seen and yet not be seen at the same time.

It's about sort of a protest.

It's about standing up against the odds.

It's about facing differences.

- I think they're both about conveying feeling and so it's up to the viewer, the experiencer to just be open to whatever that is.

And if they don't get what was the intention, they got what was right for them.

- How do we sort of come to poetry?

How do we come to an artwork?

And that interpretation of this, you know, Bob was mentioning the sort of emotion, the feeling, and finding for yourself a way into an experience, into an artwork.

And I think poetry, music, the visual arts, I think it's all about finding a way in.

- Yeah, interesting.

- And engaging in that moment.

- I think it's about taking off those categories.

Take off the category poetry, call it words, take off the category art, call it image, and then there's infinite ways in, right?

Take away, strip that away.

- I think Cavafy's poetry and the archive of it was very inspirational on two levels.

One for Cavafy's relationship with time and history and how he helps us understand the tools and technologies of today in a broader sweep.

But also when it comes to the visual aspect of this art, the machine learning models themselves are very much so built on an idea of archives and an idea of bringing all of the images on the internet together and to sort of analyze them statistically to make these models and images possible.

- It gave us a better sense of who Cavafy was and his relationship especially to Alexandria.

And this was a major, I think, inspiration in terms of how we started crafting the visuals of "Ekphrasis," which is essentially using his poetry to interrogate, you know, the limits of machine learning models and sort of where they sometimes fall short for the more creative edges of human language.

- You start to get a sense of what do these words, what sorts of images do these words sort of evoke in a general way based on the statistical patterns on the internet.

- When I was kind of going through the words and it just made me think of my own situation, what I think my idea of freedom might be, but also what are the different situations and barriers that might keep me from getting to my full potential?

What do these walls look like?

And being from Brooklyn, New York, where there's a lot of development happening right now and there are very large buildings that are coming up that block the Sun and seem like they were the walls in my own life.

I also realized how timeless it is.

This poem was written in the 1900s and is applying to me today.

And I found that other people might be able to use these words to, you know, describe or think about their own situations and their own limitations.

- [Reader] "Ideal voices (mysterious music) and beloved of those who have died.

Four of those were lost to us, like the dead.

(mysterious music continues) Sometimes, within our dreams, they speak.

(mysterious music continues) Sometimes the mind can hear them in our thoughts and with their sound for an instant return, sounds from the early poetry of our life.

But music in a night."

(Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (Afroditi speaking in Greek) (ominous music) - "The little household gods are trembling and trying to hide their paltry bodies.

But they've heard an inauspicious sound, a deathly sound ascending the staircase, iron footsteps shaking the stairs.

(ominous music continues) And now in fearful fate, the wretched nannies hide in the far end of the shrine, shoving each other, stumbling, one little god falling upon the other, for they've understood what sort of sound this is!

They've sensed by now the footsteps of the Furies!

(ominous music continues) Furies!

Furies!"

- He's courageous about the topics he takes on, how he takes on his topics.

He could have so easily have been lazy and still been a master poet.

He could have wrote about things so simply and still been celebrated, because he's so brilliant.

But the way he took on, so for example, classical Greece, right?

And the gods and the myths and, I don't know, the Greek nation even.

You know, he was both critical and delighted by and entranced with Greek culture.

And for me, he kind of showed me how to do the same with my own histories and mythologies, not to take them lightly, and not also to bow down.

- "When you set out on the journey to Ithaca, (mysterious music) pray that the road be long, full of adventures, full of knowledge.

The Laestrygonians and the Cyclops, the raging Poseidon, do not fear.

You'll never find the likes of these on your way.

If lofty you be your thoughts, if rare emotion touches your spirit and your body, the Laestrygonians and the Cyclops, the fierce Poseidon, you'll not encounter unless you carry them along within your soul, unless your soul raises them before you."

- You know, the real subject of all these poems is time, even the love poems or the erotic poems.

It's always, you know, the affair is always over.

It's not like any other kind of love poems or erotic poems.

Everything is in the past.

Everything is being recalled.

The breakup has already happened, you know.

Everything is retrospective, I think, in Cavafy, which is interesting.

So anyway, I do think that this question of what he feels like is one of the most interesting things about him, because his concerns are very modern.

- What I love about his poems is that you can't really tell what era he's he's in.

I mean, I think, as I said, I'd heard of him before and I was never sure if he was like a ancient poet or a modern poet, you know.

It was never so kind of defined by the period, unlike, you know, someone like, I don't know, Sylvia Plath, you know, who you definitely know is from the '60s and stuff.

That's a good strategy, (laughs) 'cause therefore you're not sort of bound to your age.

So I think, yeah, there is a timeless quality to him for sure.

The magic with poetry is that it might not matter that much a lot of the time, but then suddenly you'll read a poem or even a line, one thing, and it'll totally change your life forever.

It has that kind of strange power to be completely weak and then completely the strongest thing ever.

So it's very unpredictable, and I think that that is very good for an unpredictable world.

(laughs) (intense synth music) ♪ Counterstrike, let them ride ♪ Fully automated shock, totally open wide ♪ ♪ Desiccating on contact ♪ Cataract, killer eye (intense synth music) - You know, it's almost like you're in a temple with him dancing and the god is desire, and somehow his work preserved that space forever and ever to exalt, exalt the ways in which we love each other, want to touch each other.

Stop with the shame, stop with it and go down another path.

And there's no way you can even look at one sheet of paper in Cavafy's archive and not be called to bravery.

(vocalist singing indistinctly) (intense synth music) (intense synth music continues) (audience cheers) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio) (no audio)