We ask questions to find out the facts, but what if you can’t trust the answers, the questions, or the person who's asking the questions? In Constantine P. Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians,” translated by Evan Jones, leaders exercise a sinister kind of violence — they’ve taken over people’s imaginations with showy displays of wealth and privilege, time-wasting ceremony, and fear coursing beneath it all.
Constantine P. Cavafy was a Greek-language poet born in Alexandria, Egypt, and he lived from 1863 to 1933. His poetry has been published in numerous collections, including The Complete Poems of Cavafy, The Collected Poems, and The Barbarians Arrive Today.
Evan Jones is a Greek-Canadian poet based in Manchester, England. His first collection, Nothing Fell Today But Rain, was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry, and his British debut, Paralogues, was published in 2012. He is the translator of Constantine Cavafy’s The Barbarians Arrive Today: Poems & Prose, and his most recent poetry collection is Later Emperors.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
This is the third episode of "Poems as Teachers," a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.
We’re pleased to offer Constantine P. Cavafy’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.