A long time ago I started pairing Cavafy poems with sets of images, a process I termed "cinematic poetry." Think of it as storyboarding for a micro-movie, whose script is the poem.
Cavafy poems feature succinct descriptions of spaces, places and objects--the things I care about and design for.
"The Ides of March": Et tu, Brute? Et tu, Corona?
This issue of Cinematic Poetry for Lockdown features a Cavafy poem called "The Ides of March."
March 15 was the Ides of March, a Roman holiday which became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar.
March 44 BC in Rome: death came before you can say knife.
March 2020 in NYC: death came before you can say knife.
The slideshow below features the poem in the original Greek (left pages), and in English translation (right pages), a few verses per slide, followed by the entire set of images, and the entire poem. Click on the image for a pop-up.
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