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In Greece 1995 for 'Myth of the City'

In 1995 'the Myth of the City' conference took place in Crete. 15 poets and 15 architects, urban planners, philosophers, undertook it to discuss conditions of life in cities in various locations: at Forthnet Institute in Iraklion, up in the village of Kamilari, then down again in Chania and after spending three days there up again into the mountains and to the village of Milia.

               

                Phil Cooke, Brendan Kennelly on Ferry Boat to Crete 1995

                                                                              @ H. Schulz

 

Arrival in Heraklion 1995                                                                @ H. Schulz

 

 

 

 

 

   

     In Phaistos                                                                @ H. Schulz 1995

 

     

      At dinner in Chania                                                      @ H. Schulz 1995

 

 

 

 

                        

                         In Kissamos       @ H. Schulz, 1995

 

In Milia

Up in the mountains, there exists a village which had been abandoned during the rage of the pest in the late nineteenth century. Only lately, the director of Goethe Institute in Chania, together with three brothers, undertook it to restore the entire village made up of stone houses in a steep valley up on a plateau. Organic food and no electricity ensures another atmosphere prevails. It has a small amphitheatre where in the evening poetry reading took place with all the people and their children from the surrounding or near-by villages coming to attend both passively and actively. For many read their poems or the children sang songs. It was the last evening of this most remarkable journey through Crete with 15 poets and 15 architects, philosophers, urban planners etc.

 

        

         Brendan Kennelly, Katerina Anghelaki Rooke            @ H. Schulz 1995

 

                     

                      Woman, Maya, Brendan Kennelly, Katerina Anghelaki Rooke

                      Hatto Fischer in Milia                          @ H. Schulz 1995

 

Brendan Kennelly said at one point while sitting there, on this veranda and overlooking the entire landscape, that now he realizes what unhealthy life he leads in Dublin. That remark can be taken as an anticipation for what was to come in the following year. A heart surgery to give him a by-pass, and when he awoke, he wrote that poem 'The man made out of rain' - a reflection of what the figure of a father meant to him when not healthy.

 

"In memories of 1995"

Hatto Fischer

Athens April 2014

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