Poems

The Alexandrian Greek poet Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) is a towering figure of twentieth-century literature. No modern poet brought so vividly to life the history and culture of Mediterranean antiquity; no writer dared break, with such taut energy, the taboos of his time surrounding homoerotic desire.

In this edition, award-winning translator and editor Daniel Mendelsohn has made a selection of the poet’s best-loved works, including such favorites as “Waiting for the Barbarians,” “Ithaca,” and “The God Abandons Antony.” Accompanied by Mendelsohn’s explanatory notes, the poems collected here cover the vast sweep of Hellenic civilization, from the Trojan War through Cavafy’s own lifetime. Whether advising Odysseus as he returns home to Ithaca or portraying a doomed Marc Antony on the eve of his death, Cavafy’s poems make the historic profoundly and movingly personal.

C. P. CAVAFY (1863-1933) was a Greek poet who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, and worked as a journalist and civil servant. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete. His fame grew substantially after his death.

DANIEL MENDELSOHN's reviews and essays appear regularly in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. His award-winning books includeThe Elusive Embrace and The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Prix Medicis. He teaches at Bard College.