“Love and loss in literary: Katerina Aggelaki-Rouk”
Angelaki-Rouk (February 22, 1939 – January 21, 2020) is one of the greatest Greek poetesses. She was the spiritual daughter of the famous Greek writer, Nikos Kazantzakis. She was born in Athens (Exarcheia), in 1939. She has published 43 books. The poet’s explosive character appears in her words and her lyrics:
“I try to reconcile with the idea of old age and live with the idea of the absence of my future. I might be able to do it, but it also leaves me in the dark.”
“I wonder what other connections
life will invent between the trauma
of absolute disappearance and the miracle
of every day immortality.”
Katerina Aggelaki Rouk was a strong and very lively person. She began to write to express everything that made her unhappy. She was born with staph infection and this created a form of disability for both the leg and the arm. Despite the ironic comments received during her school years, her problem has never stopped her having a completely normal life, strengthened her as a person and developed her as an artist.
Her sense of humor is special. When a reporter told her that growing up softens her appearance, she replied, “Maybe because I’m getting closer to the exit …”.
Katerina Aggelaki-Rouk, taught us the true meaning of the words love, loss and decay.
“The useless things can go, I say.
Let me in to the sky of nothingness,
with next to nothing…”
Here are some of her precious thoughts:
“What we do, what we think lies in the shadow of the future. Age reduces the idea of the future. Awareness of aging is a state of panic. ”
“My Life is a living film of this truth: that whatever happens, whether you capture it in your life or not, failure somewhere may possibly have a success.”
“Love has been the key element in my life and in my poetry. Poetry is like love. Unpredictable. Even if you are completely isolated, there may come a moment and a verse can express exactly how you feel. ”
Sofia Skleida,
She was born in Athens. She studied Filology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens where she obtained her BA,MA in Pedagogy, Ph.D in Comparative Pedagogy and a postdoctoral research certificate . She obtained a certification in the Braille language. Today she works as a teacher in the secondary education. She took part in conferences and published articles in the Greek and international scientific journals, in conference papers and chapters books. She was awarded for her participation in poetry and literary contests in Greece and abroad. Her poems have been translated into Italian, English, Spanish, Albanian and Romanian. Her first poetic collection entitled Dream of Oasis (Thessaloniki, 2014), was translated and published in Italy in 2017 (won the second prize in an international competition in Milan). Her first Fairy tale entitled Geometrini was published in 2016 , her second with the title The Kingdom of Joy in 2018. Some of her published works are the following : Neologisms, Melismos , Ιn the Mediterranean, Poetic Reflections, Cappadocian theological references in handwritten verses, The teaching of classical languages in the Italian secondary education ,Poetic visions in Paintings, Didactic Trilogy: Body-Spirit-Soul, Educational Proposals. She is a regular member at the Panhellenic Union of Writers.
