GINGER F. ZAIMIS

OVERVIEW​

 

 

Ginger F. Zaimis (G.F. Zaimis) is an American poet, essayist, editor, literary translator, photographer and advisor who specializes in architectural and perennial forms.

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A polymath educated in the arts, architecture, economics and
the classical world, the author's vision and grammatology
explore the intersections of contemporary modernisms and
comparative literature, blur the minimal to monumental,
abstract to literal while reuniting the Arts, Humanities and
Sciences as one while appropriating, progressing and
translating portions of Classical mythology, philosophy and
poetry. She is the author of four book-length poetry collections,
Antigone the Heroic Crown (2023), Therapy with Antigone
and the Trilogy Verses (2017), Prometheus Rebound and
Other Mythology (2015) and Excavated Athens to Alexandria
(2013), as well as, The Portico Convention (2013), a treatise
on poetry as architecture and architecture as poetry. Zaimis is
the co-author of Philosophy and Poetry (2014) with the
distinguished Philosopher of Kaircity and Member of The
Athens Academy, E. Moutsopoulos, as well as, author of the
photographic architectural monograph, Monumental Athens
Urban (2012).

Her work has been presented at international centers for contemporary art, biennials, museums, universities, institutes, world libraries and the Centre for Greek Philosophy, The Athens Academy to name a few. Her work is published from NYC, London, Athens, Alexandria to Rome and her poetry translated into Modern Greek, Bengali and Arabic. She is PEN America's Poetry finalist (2015) for her debut collection, Excavated Athens to Alexandria; the architect of two poetic forms: the Portico and Triptych.[1][2] and an elected Advisory Board Member[3] for Fordham University London.

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GRAMMATOLOGY

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Poetry as text-tile

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Her poetry unites intersections of language through the lens of architecture while braiding mythology and philosophy to connect multi-disciplinary dialogues. Her work with the sonnet, form and verse have been associated with New Formalism.
 

Her recent book-length poem, Antigone the Heroic Crown, is written as a Heroic Crown of sonnets, employing the Classical form designed by the Sienna Academy in 1460 which comprises fourteen interlinking sonnets plus one crown that speak of/with/to healing the ontological essence of the feminine archetype and Human condition.

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Mythos and logos in translation

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She has appropriated, progressed and translated archetypes from the Classical and Hellenistic periods into her own poetic oeuvre embodying themes from philosophical to mythological tragedy(s) questioning the death of Alexander the Great to Aeschylus' Prometheus and Sophocles' Antigone. Works include: The
Divine Inquisition, for Aristotle [4][5] Prometheus Rebound[6] and Therapy with Antigone.[7] Translations from the Ancient Greek to English verse include: Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus[8] composed in sestina; Aristophanes Frogs; select portions of the Hippocratic Corpus and a work-in-progress entitled, Speaking Stoic: Unto Myself [9] from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

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RECEPTION AND RESPONSE

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Antigone the Heroic Crown, the book-length poem progressing Sophocles' mythology is reviewed by Ioannis Petropoulos, Classicist and Director Emeritus of Harvard University, Centre for Hellenic Studies as – “Philosophy resounds throughout...The rhythm of thoughts, association of ideas and sounds are in service like memorial... Yet here, is another Antigone – 'another' as per the late George Steiner suggests, theoretical infinity of a heroine's permutations, cross time. Ginger's poem illustrates that intellect and emotion can be expressed with intensity and warmth which philosophy ordinarily abjures. The work is both philosophical meditation and elegy.”
 

Therapy with Antigone and the Trilogy Verses, the poet's third collection is critically observed by poet, Lee Slonimsky as – "Extraordinary content with spiritual insight and academic depth…Few writers of our day can ground one part of the mind in the material world while allowing the other to roam in philosophical eternity like Ginger Zaimis...Part of her psyche…resides in the world of Heraclitus, Sophocles and the other in the light of presence…Her ability to unite dualities; synthesize opposites as One is greater than the sum of
their parts".[10] Critic, translator and co-founder, Cecile Margellos of Yale University Press/Margellos Republic of Letters writes – "Ginger's idea of mythologies through an architectural lens stand boldly at the intersection of contemporary and comparative literature... her work reveals the in-between of worlds, strata and disciplines by inventing new prototypes"[11] while Maria Georgopoulou, Director of the Gennadius Library says – "Ginger is someone who bridges the arts... she doesn't fit in-to-a-box but rather perceives life out-of-the-
box... bringing architectural order to the world by shaping words, poetry, and perception."[12]

 

Her second collection, Prometheus Rebound and Other Mythology, Rachel Hadas writes – "Ginger Zaimis sometimes sounds like Heraclitus – fragmentary, abrupt, vatic and witty. Verses resonate with breathtaking peremptory wisdom... Remarkable!"[13] while Paolo Colombo, curator, artist, poet and former director of
the MAXXI, sees her poetry as installation – "Each word is sculpted into perfect form as architecture itself to fit the necessity of language…The sonnets are experienced as pages of diptychs that converge into triptychs, her new visual and literary, poetic hybrid, shaping abstraction into form, aether to volume, idea from void."[14] and Elizabeth J. Coleman, vice-president of the Poetry Society of America observes – "I am in awe of Ginger Zaimis' knowledge of history and mythology, her skill and creativity with form. I love the
way she weaves the current with the ancient, the high with the low...so wittily, so gracefully."[15]

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Ernest Hilbert critically observes of her first collection, Excavated Athens to Alexandria[16] – "Her intelligence sparkles...She proves that the sonnet is more than merely a little song of love, that it can and
must contain multitudes of voices and address infinite concerns."[17] Likewise A.E. Stallings notes –“Ginger navigates the world and her life with grace, elegance…Her poetic voice is fresh and unexpected:
tough, tender, funny, fierce, risky and sometimes risqué...mixing high-register diction with a vernacular of Southern sassiness”[18].

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DISTINCTIONS AND NEW POETIC FORMS

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Her debut collection, Excavated Athens to Alexandria,[16] a didactic collection inspired by Classical Greece and Hellenistic Alexandria, explores language as architecture and architecture as poetry. She is PEN America’s Poetry Finalist (2015) for best, first collection. Her poems have been anthologized in the Library of Alexandria, Poetry Anthologies (2014, 2015, 2017 & 2019), IFBA Press.[19][20][21] The author is a Keats-Shelley Museum, Rome[22] fellow and has served as a poetry judge. Her first two collections, Excavated Athens to Alexandria and Prometheus Rebound and Other Mythology were nominated for the London Hellenic Prize. She is the architect of the two new poetic forms: the Portico and Triptych.

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The Portico Form

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The Portico form was the poet's first she designed. It was inspired by the facade of a classical temple's porch or portico. "It is a defined poetic shape, written in verse that employs specific design elements to achieve a result of sound – silence – sound. The new form uses architecture as a connective matrix to unite the literary arts which incorporate aesthetic, rhythmic and verse qualities. It was designed in 2012–13. It is founded upon classical architectural fundamentals that emulate the design of a classical temple, specifically, the colonnaded portico from which it has appropriates its name. Its concept is premised upon Vitruvius architectural principles." Poetry's new form is outlined in her treatise entitled, The Portico Convention."[23][24]
 

The poems, Propylaia and The Caryatids,[25] are some of the first prototypes that were used to develop the convention. The former, Propylaia,[26] is appropriated from the Propylaia at the Acropolis and Englished from the Greek meaning an entrance; gateway to. The latter, references the Erechtheion Temple at the Athenian Acropolis and the origins of the Caryatids, re-told through her poetry, "Portico of six ||| rhomb adjacent to ||| Beauty eurhythmic ||| adjoined carefully two ||| Maidens of the Caryae ||| All from Laconia ||| Commitment lifetime ||| obligation diva..."[27] based upon M. Vitruvius Pollio provenance in de
Architectura. The Portico poem[28] is dedicated to T.S. Eliot.

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The Triptych

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The poet's second poetic form, the Triptych, the design model pays homage to the ancient Homeric epigram plus two lines, the Greek haiku and Rothko. "It is a conversion of the classically contemporary visual and literary arts as I imagine it poetically, and how Rothko might have re-imagined it." The triptych form was first presented in the poet's second collection, Prometheus Rebound and the Other Mythology.[29] "The triptych...distills thought that recounts impressions and incidents as rhythmic, mural imagery in bits of three
brushed onto paper. Like painting or architecture, it integrates text-tile and space as it delineates the nuance of original shape redrawing boundary while solidifying synergy premised on archetype models."[30]
 

Examples include: LULL,[31] a commission for A Poet's Agora (2016), After the last before the first and Wyrd worker.[32] The triptych form is further explored and experimented in the poet's third collection, Therapy with Antigone and the Trilogy Verses, encompassing a third of the collection.[33]

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Monographs & collections

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• "Antigone the Heroic Crown" (ΠΟΛΥΕΔΡΟ γράμματα – τέχνες, 2023)
  ISBN 978-618-86679-1-4

• "Therapy with Antigone and the Trilogy Verses" (Spuyten Duyvil, 2017)
  ISBN 978-1-944682-40-8

• "Prometheus Rebound and Other Mythology" (Blue Scarab Press, 2015)
  ISBN 978-1-938963-10-0

• "Philosophy and Poetry", co-author E. Moutsopoulos, (Library of Alexandria
  IFBA Press, 2014). ISBN 978-618-80327-1-2

• "Excavated Athens to Alexandria" (Blue Scarab Press, 2013). ISBN 978-1-938963-04-9

• "The Portico Convention" (Blue Scarab Press, 2013). ISBN 978-1-938963-06-3

• "Monumental Athens Urban" (Squared Editions, 2012). ISBN 978-1-938963-02-5

 

Select Journals, anthologies & features

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• “Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν / Speaking Stoic: Unto thyself”, a new verse translation of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Fordham University, October 2022 ​

• "Bright Yellow Buzz" by Lee Slonimsky feat. poems Ginger F. Zaimis (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022). ISBN 978-1-9560-0562-2

• "Wings of Thought" Anthology, A Poet's Agora (Xlibris, 2021). ISBN 978-1-6641-2975-7

• "Poetry Anthologies" (Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2014,2015, 2017 & 2019).

• "The Romantics and Greece: Myth, Transcendence, Art, Beauty and Love" (Keats-Shelley Review, Taylor Francis Publications, Vol. 31, Issue 2, 2017). ISSN 0952-4142, ISSN 2042-1362

• "Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus, transl. from Ancient Greek to English verse, (Library of Alexandria, 11th Poetry Anthology, "Reaching for the Stars", IFBA Press, 2017).

• "LULL" (A Poets' Agora), Anthology, 2017[34]

• "Fairy Tale Logic: Mythology to Philosophy and the Text-tile of" (Athens Academy, Research Centre for Greek Philosophy, PHILOSOPHIA, Vol. 46, 2016). ISSN 1105-2120 

• "O-dyss-epic, (Library of Alexandria, 9th Poetry Anthology, IFBA Press, 2014).

• "Architecture of Public Policy: A master plan draft, architecture as politics" (VOLUME Project, Columbia University C-Lab, AMO & Archis Foundation, NYC, Vol. 30, 2012). ISBN 978-9077966303

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Readings, talks, plays & exhibitions

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Keynote readings

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• "Therapy with Antigone: Myth, Choice & Destiny", Freud Museum London, March 2024

• Presidential Reception Welcome, Poetry in Dedication, excerpts from a new Ancient Greek to English Verse translation of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations entitled, “Speaking Stoic: Unto

• Myself”, Fordham University at the Shard, London, October 2022[35]

• "Athens, Alexandria & Rome", @MoonstationAthens, December 2022

• "Pop-up Poetry Series" Live @Acropolis of Athens, November 2021

• An Evening of Poetry with the Centurians, Poetry@Century Association, NYC, November 2020

• "International Poetry Society", "Shelley, Byron and the Italian, Greek Years" @Free Thinking Zone, Athens, October 2020

• Excerpts from a NEW translation from Ancient Greek to English Verse of "Aristophanes' Frogs", Poetry@Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria October 2019

• "10th International Arts Council Conference" Chair, IARC, Acropolis Museum Athens, October 2019[36]

• "Poetry@theCentury", 10th Anniversary of Poetry@theCentury, Century Association Arts Club, NYC, March 2018

• "ODYSSEY 2017", Read in the Languages of the World", Athens Concert Hall, Time stamp2:00, Summer 2017

• "LULL", A Poets' Agora, Athens, December 2016

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Keynote lectures, papers & presentations

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• "Keats and me: Dialogues with a Grecian Urn and Other Poems", Festival of Writing and Ideas: the Journey, British School at Athens, March 2023

• "Between the Lines: Reading the Is and Not", Keynote, London Lecture Series, Philosophy & Literature, Fordham University & Gabelli School of Business, London, February 2023[37]

• Poetry in Dedication for Presidential Reception Welcome, Excerpts from a NEW Ancient Greek to English Verse translation of Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations", Fordham University at the Shard, London, October 2022

• "Axioms of Thought Re-connecting the Dots", Keynote, Gabelli School of Business & Fordham University Lecture Series, March 2021[38]

• "Shelley, Byron and the Italian, Greek Years", Keynote, International Poetry Society Lecture Series, Athens, March 2020

• "The Romantics and Greece: Myth, Transcendence, Art and Beauty",[39][40] Keats-Shelley House, Rome, February 2017

• "Poetic Impressions: Heraclitean Perspectives" The Athens Centre, June 2017

• "Balancing Pythagorean and Heraclitean Themes",[41]Athens Academy, Research Centre for Greek Philosophy, Ginger F. Zaimis, November 2016[42]

• "Fairy Tale Logic: Mythology to Philosophy through Poetry",[43] Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies Athens, October 2016

• "Excavated Athens to Alexandria", Parnassus Literary Society, Kostis Palamas Salon, 2013 [44]

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Performances and theatrical works

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• Therapy with Antigone performance, @6th Patras World Poetry Festival, by Ginger F. Zaimis, the META-I-DOLLS, sound by Anima Creativa & creative direction by Ioannis Melanitis, September 2023[45]

• Excerpts from a NEW translation from Ancient Greek to English Verse of Aristophanes' Frogs", Poetry@Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, October 2019

• "Prometheus Rebound",[46], February 2015

• "The Divine Inquisition",[47] Parnassos Literary Society, December 2013

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Exhibitions

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• "Sleep",[48] Collector's Edition Poem "Industrial Strength Sleep" by Ginger F. Zaimis, written for Ed Ruscha's installation with the same title, IBID Gallery, LA, 2016, curated by Paolo Colombo

• "Sleep",[48] Art & Poetry exhibition with Ed Ruscha, Rosemarie Trockel, Robert Gober, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, IBID Gallery, LA, 2016, curated by Paolo Colombo

• "Architect of Public Policy"[49] 7th Berlin Biennale, photography, curated by Artur Żmijewski

• "Abstract Shapes and Forms" Agency of Unrealized Projects, photography, curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist

• "A Dialogue with Sol LeWitt" MASS MoCA, photography, curated by Regine Basha[50]

• "A Digital City of Art and Architecture" Manifesta Biennale co-curated by Ole Bouman[51]

• "Digital City" Deste Foundation curated by Katerina Gregos[52]

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ORCID:

Ginger F. Zaimis 0000-0002-6745-1338

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