Exercises 1950–1960 by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Spring Ulmer Pablo Neruda ‘She is an extremely fine

‘She is an extremely fine poet

from its Classical roots in the work of Theocritus

I looked out at the rushing homes and fields and cried

His poetry has also appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in Aberdeen Art Gallery and V&A Dundee

he saw himself not just as nature’s faithful chronicler and recorder but as its medium: light

Exercises 1950–1960 by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Spring Ulmer Pablo Neruda ‘She is an extremely finePublished 1st November 2025. Yannis Ritsos wrote Exercises 19501960 after being tortured and detained during the Greek Civil War. Incredibly, the poems are filled not with bitterness but with amazementat a solitary leaf, a rope ladder, rose and grey light. Alongside such tenderness, of course, the nation state stretches out in the sun, teeth bared. What to say about the human condition? Not long after completing these poems, Ritsos was again