Christos Koltsidas
- Greece -
Christos Koltsidas was born in 1991 in Karditsa. He studied philosophy at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is a PhD candidate with a research focus on Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion and the anti-theodicy of the Welsh philosopher Dewi Z. Phillips. His poems have been translated into English, German, Italian and Russian and have been included in several poetry anthologies. He has participated in several literary festivals, including the 4th Young Writers' Festival (Thessaloniki International Book Fair, 2017), the 4th Patras World Poetry Festival (2021), and the 9th Athens World Poetry Festival (2023). In 2019 and 2023, he collaborated with the organizing team of the Thessalian Poetry Festival and was also a member of the organizing team of the 12th Literary Scene Festival (Thessaloniki, 2023).
In 2015, he published his first poetry collection, The Highlands (Melani), which won the 2016 State Award for Best Debut Author. His second poetry collection, Passed Rain (Melani), was published in 2020 and was followed by Aquifers (Thraka, 2021). All three books explore, from different perspectives, aspects of death, decay, and rebirth, utilizing images from the landscape and life in the highlands and lowlands of Thessaly, as well as myths, folk stories, and the aesthetics of photography. As the poet and critic Theoni Kotini wrote in the literary journal “Neon Planodion”: “It is interesting how the new generation seeks the root of its own continuity through the mythologizing of the genealogy that made the present. It treads on the ways of the previous generation that sought to explain the traumatic and dreamlike province that first nurtured and then exiled it. Here we do not have the trauma, for that is what the previous generation suffered, but its legacy. This refined localness of Koltsidas is one of the most fascinating elements of his writing.”
Koltsidas’ fourth book, Dialectics: Poems and Micro-Stories on Philosophy (Akyvernites Politeies, 2022), was written in collaboration with writer Yiota Tempridou. "Dialectics”, wrote poet Lambros Papadimas in “Frear” literary journal,“gives the impression of a book with a hybrid character. On the one hand, it mimics the structure of an academic, philosophical essay: for example, it includes an Introduction or chapters (poems or micro-stories) that refer to different philosophical concepts, while simultaneously mocking and deconstructing the discipline of rigorous handbooks. The book is a philosophical-literary game, built upon a dialogical succession of poems and prose, where the authors employ the following techniques: abstraction, condensation, synthesis.”
In 2023 The Heart of the Samurai: Sixteen Exercises of Composure was published by Thraka. The sixteen short poems of the book, under the influence of Stoicism, Zen and the exploration of Budo, function as brief exercises in "composure" and as reflections on loneliness, the paradoxes of warrior ethics, death and a life "anxiously confronted with the stress of change" (Akis Parafelas, “Frear” literary journal).
Poetry
-
Landscape demarcation / Οριοθέτηση του τοπίου
-
The weather in the provinces / Ο καιρός στην επαρχία
-
Of the wayfarer / Του οδοιπόρου
-
Of feasting / Του γλεντιού
-
Of simplicity / Της απλότητας
-
Epilogue / Επίλογος
-
PS. / ΥΓ.
-
Αquifers / Νεροφόροι
-
would-be / δυνάμει
-
pleasure / ηδονή
-
morality / ηθική
-
God’s death / θάνατος του Θεού
-
Job / Ιώβ
-
metaphysics / μεταφυσική
-
meaning / νόημα
-
ontological argument / οντολογικό επιχείρημα
-
Gyges’ ring / το δαχτυλίδι του Γύγη
-
Übermensch / υπεράνθρωπος
-
phenomenology / φαινομενολογία
-
Beginning / Αρχή
-
Rain / Βροχή
-
The heart of the Samurai gets wet / Βρέχεται η καρδιά του Σαμουράι
-
Wooden toys / Ξύλινα παιχνίδια
-
Starry night / Αστροβραδιά
-
Season of observation / Εποχή της παρατήρησης
-
Praemeditatio malorum / Praemeditatio malorum