June 19, 2006
Dimitris P. Kraniotis
Poet
Greece, EU
Muses Review - Long Interview
Legend:
Bold Letters indicate Muses Review.
Non-bold Letters indicate Dimitris Kraniotis.
Part I. Your opinion
1. Tell the readers about your latest poetrybook "Fictitious Line":
My latest poetrybook "Fictitious Line" consists of poems in Greek, English and French which I have composed during the last decade. The lyrics of my poems are meditative and confessional. There the reader can find smile and tears, innocence and nostalgia, bitterness and agony, expectations and experiences, feelings and guilt, love images and romantic paths, thoughts and speculations, music and colours.
2. Describe briefly your hometown in Greece:
I live in Larissa, the fourth biggest town in Greece with a population of 200000 inhabitants. It's the capital city of Thessaly with the Medical School of Thessaly University and the State Higher Technological Educational Institute. One of its archaelogical attractions is the Ancient Theatre. It's a modern city full of life, beauty and a long history. It's crossed by river Penius and it's close to the Aegean sea and to Olympus, the mountain of the 12 Ancient Gods. Hippocrates, father of Medicine died in Larissa. In the roundabouts is Stomio, a coastal town where I was born and raised.
3. Why do you like to compose poetry?
I believe that poetry is a means of expression and communication with other people and it helps me to retain my personal balances. Through poetry I am able to express my anxieties, my feelings, my dreams, to make others become part of my thoughts, to make them see the world through my own eyes.
4. What is your favorite poem you did not write?
"Axion Esti" by Greek poet Odysseas Elytis (Nobel Prize in Literature 1979).
5. How many languages can you speak and write fluently?
Greek, English and French.
6. What are your favorite themes in writing poetry?
The main topics of my poetic inspiration are the suppressed contemporary man and his problems, his anxieties and fears, the impasse and hopes, his wounded dreams, the everyday stress, the conscience, the truth, nature, world peace, history, romance, life, death and time. Poetic words do not have a general and unspecifield meaning and are part of a confession with tense sensational alternations despite the frequently misty atmosphere of our era. Sense and memory are painful black-and-white images that dominate my poems and through them I reviel my personal agony and the social dead ends.
7. Why should people read your poetrybook or any poetry book?
Reading a poetrybook, the reader often discovers thoughts feelings, ideas that hadn't been revieled yet. He sometimes agrees and others disagrees with the poet. This internal dialogue between the reader and the poet leads to a magic trip of life consideration, full of wanderings in routes that belong to the past and the future where each poem is both a starting line and termination.
8. Tell us something about the design for your book cover?
On the cover page the man like a wounded bird flies along the fictitious line that divines the past and the future. It flies along the fictitious line that unites the brightness of the day and light with the red of passion and love. It flies along the fictitious line that unites the blue of every morning optimism with the crimson of the mistakes that hurt us.
9. Who chose the book design?
The cover page was created by Christos Papanikolaou, a Greek painter from Larissa, who has inspired by my poetrybook.
10. Are you more creative as a poet or as a medical doctor?
I believe that poetry is creation. As a result I feel more creative as a poet because through poetry I'm able to create images, thoughts, visions and truth that provoque emotions and lead the reader to different worlds.
11. Who is your favorite ancient Greek poet?
Homer.
12. Where can people buy your poetrybooks aside from Muses Review?
My poetrybook "Fictitious Line" (in greek "ÍïçôÞ ÃñáììÞ") may be purchased at the various online greeks bookshops, such as Books-in-Greek.gr, Bazaarbooks.gr, Diaspora.gr, E-shop.gr and various websites, such as Authorsden, Muses Review, my Official Website and others.
13. What countries have you visited so far? I have visited these countries:
U.S.A., France, Turkie, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Former Yugoslavia.
14. Did you translate your Greek poems into French and English by yourself? Yes.
15. Why did you choose your career as a doctor instead of a writer?
Since I was a young boy, I dreamt to become a doctor in order to assist I believe that health is of the greatest value. Poetry is a means of expression, communication and creativity. I could never consider poetry as a job. Anyway poetry and medicine are not far from each other considering closely that both of them are related to man and pain that is the main part of his existence.
16. Do you enjoy your career as a medical doctor?
Everyday through medicine I am in contact with to situations that wound my internal ego. Medicine is a demanding science and it restricts time and frequence that I would like to devote to poetry.
17. What event/s triggered you to go into poetry?
From my childhood I have been writing poems and short-stories. My first poem was written at the age of 11 about Stomio, my hometown where I was born. At the age of 14 some of my short-stories and poems were for the first time published in magazines and newspapers of Larissa.
18. What is your official website?
My Official Website www.geocities.com/dkraniotis
19. What are your plans in five years time as a poet?
I have already composed some new poems and I'm still writing. I hope to publish two new poetrybooks in the next 5 years and to establish myself in the literary circles.
20. Describe briefly your job as a medical doctor?
I am a Specialized Pathologist and I have my own Medical Office in Larissa. I'm still the Company Doctor of the Hellenic Sugar Industry and a examining doctor in Greek Social Security Organization for the Self-employed. From 2003 to 2004 I had been working in Thessaloniki Infectious Diseases Hospital. Since 2002 I had been working in the Larissa General Hospital while from 2003 to 2004 I was Director at the Pathology Department in the Private General Clinics "Blue Cross - Euromedica" and "Saint Constantine - Home Care" of Larissa. I?m still a Professor at the Department of Medical Care of State Higher Technological Educational Institute of Larissa and an examiner of the medical graduates in State Vocational Education Institutes of Larissa (Greece).
21. Describe the room where you write your poems?
I can write anywhere and anytime. Since poetry is closely related to the moment, I don't believe that poetry can be composed under certain circumstances and in a specific room. Poetry, in order to take a shape it follows a painful procedure. It is a distillate of soul, that's why the creator never knows when it is going to come the following inspiration. For instance, I have written lots of poems while I was resting or relaxing at my Medical Office or the Hospital. I am main inspired at night, when it rains, when I am in love or when I am sad.
22. Can people make a living out of writing poetry when he is an outsider in literary circles?
I don't believe that one can make a living writing poetry. This can only be happen in certain circumstances famous poets. Anyway, Poetry is a difficult kind of writing and concerns a limited reading audience in contrast to non-fiction.
23. Briefly, what is the role of poets in society?
The role of poets in the society is really important. The poet has a different vision on the events and tries to alarm consciences, to notify the danger, to indicate new roads in the thought and soul of the reader through painting feelings and rhythm.
24. Why do you write in free verse instead of rhymed verses as most ancient Greek poets did?
Through free verse can express myself better and with more freedom, comfort and clearness. In addition free verse should have rhythm and musicality because otherwise we don't talk about poetry.
25. Aside from yourself, do you know any famous modern Greek poet?
Odysseas Elytis, Constantine Cavafy, Giorgos Seferis.
26. Do you have plans to write novels?
Yes.
27. What literary organizations did you join?
I am Vice-President and founding member of the Larissa Writers' and Poets' Society (Greece) and member of greek and international literary organizations: Hellenic Literary Society, International Society of Greek Writers, the World Academy of Arts and Culture (WAAC), the International Writers and Artists Association (IWA), the Union Mondiale des Ecrivains Medecins (UMEM), United Poets Laureate International (UPLI), International Society of Poets (ISP), Poetry Society of America (PSA), Washington Poets Association (WPA) and The Academy of American Poets.
28. Describe your favorite Greek food:
My favorite Greek food is mousaka.
Part II. Your Background
1. Were you interviewed in a literary magazine or newspaper before?
Yes. I was interviewed in the greek newspapers "Imerisios Kirikas" (Larissa, 21 November 2004 and 17 July 2005) and "Kosmos" (Larissa, 20 April 2006).
2. Were you featured/interviewed in television shows?
Yes. I was featured/interviewed in television: "TRT" (Larissa, 2004), "ASTRA TV" (Larissa, 2004, 2005), "Thessalia TV" (Larissa, 2001,2002,2003,2004,2005).
3. Were you featured/interviewed in a radio before?
Yes. I was featured/interviewed in radio: "HELLENIC RADIO ERT-2" (Athens, 1985), "HELLENIC RADIO ERA" (Larissa, 2003), "DIMOTIKO RADIO LARISSA 93,6" (Larissa, 2003), "RADIO PALACE" (Larissa, 2003), "BEST RADIO" (Larissa, 2005).
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