Volcanoed |ηφαιστειωθής
type: CreativeWork
description: On my final day on Nisyros island, I went swimming at Hohlakia. With its enormous black pebbles resembling miniature boulders, Hohlakia challenges the very act of walking or balancing. Entering its waters is a struggle, even when the sea is "smooth like oil." And the clarity of the water remains elusive unless one surrenders to the buoyancy. This extraordinary place is a volcano. On that final day in Nisyros, two words, "volcanoed" and "ηφαιστειωθής", lingered in my brain. On the boat to Kos and the plane to Athens, and from there to Cape Town, I kept on ruminating, "I was volcanoed." "Ηφαιστειώθηκα." My body was certain that I had survived a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that tore me apart and reconstructed me in a mix of languages that melted into each other like lava. Three months before, my father had died after six agonising months of illness and horror. I had promised myself that this time I would not be the doctor of the family. I would just be a son. I failed. And I didn't even have space or time to grieve; my mother had sucked out all the family's sorrow and returned only wrath. Volcanoed and ηφαιστειωθής came together, and some more words were melted in, until I wrote a poem in two parts. This was the first entirely bilingual poem I have written. Ever since that day, I've found it difficult to write a poem using only one of my two primary languages. People ask me if I translate the poems from Greek into English or vice versa. I grapple with the concept of translation, for my process transcends mere translation. I write some lines and stanzas in one language and some in the other, and I do ‘counter translate' until I feel each version is complete. The two versions, like twins, are growing together, swimming in the same amniotic fluid, but they are dizygotic twins, not identical. The linguistic duality I navigate is a constant negotiation, a dialogue between two identities that feels both enriching and disorienting. At times, I feel I have to choose between …
abstract: On my final day on Nisyros island, I went swimming at Hohlakia. With its enormous black pebbles resembling miniature boulders, Hohlakia challenges the very act of walking or balancing. Entering its waters is a struggle, even when the sea is "smooth like oil." And the clarity of the water remains elusive unless one surrenders to the buoyancy. This extraordinary place is a volcano. On that final day in Nisyros, two words, "volcanoed" and "ηφαιστειωθής", lingered in my brain. On the boat to Kos and the plane to Athens, and from there to Cape Town, I kept on ruminating, "I was volcanoed." "Ηφαιστειώθηκα." My body was certain that I had survived a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that tore me apart and reconstructed me in a mix of languages that melted into each other like lava. Three months before, my father had died after six agonising months of illness and horror. I had promised myself that this time I would not be the doctor of the family. I would just be a son. I failed. And I didn't even have space or time to grieve; my mother had sucked out all the family's sorrow and returned only wrath. Volcanoed and ηφαιστειωθής came together, and some more words were melted in, until I wrote a poem in two parts. This was the first entirely bilingual poem I have written. Ever since that day, I've found it difficult to write a poem using only one of my two primary languages. People ask me if I translate the poems from Greek into English or vice versa. I grapple with the concept of translation, for my process transcends mere translation. I write some lines and stanzas in one language and some in the other, and I do ‘counter translate' until I feel each version is complete. The two versions, like twins, are growing together, swimming in the same amniotic fluid, but they are dizygotic twins, not identical. The linguistic duality I navigate is a constant negotiation, a dialogue between two identities that feels both enriching and disorienting. At times, I feel I have to choose between …
author: Isaakidis, Petros
language: en
keywords: Volcanoed, ηφαιστειωθής
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:22:55Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: School of Languages and Literatures

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41721