Goatsong by Phoebe Giannisi, trans. Brian Sneeden
Poetry Book Society Translation Choice Winter 2025 MD Kerr being as much about the

being as much about the human world as the natural

tenderness and hopefulness

as everything collapses around her

nothing less than extraordinary

In 1986 he received Armenia’s State Prize for Literature

Goatsong by Phoebe Giannisi, trans. Brian Sneeden<br><b>Poetry Book Society Translation Choice Winter 2025</b> MD Kerr being as much about thePublished 6th November 2025. The ancient Greek word for tragedy () is a compound of goat () and song ( ). In Phoebe Giannisi's Goatsong, the seam that connects human and animal, myths and history, is the body. In Giannisis language, life obeys myth. A man places a screaming cicada in his mouth, reminding us of a scene from Platos Phaedrus, where Socrates claims cicadas to have been humans who became entranced by the invention of singing, and didnt