n Vernal Equinox, his third volume of poetry from Ekstasis, the Greek emigre poet Manolis is at his most intimately eloquent and passionately exuberant. As with Ovid, as with Neruda, the quotidian and the ordinary is transcended by Eros. The poems in this volume are taut, lyrical and informed by a powerful and subtle music, infused by un-sentimental directness and sensual precision. Working within the domain of consciously reduced perceptions, Manolis pushes language to its outer edge, locating the sayable within the shifting tumult of the real. Moment to moment the poems move through the world, rooted in a dark radiance and a luminous energy, charged with sensuality and grace. In the deep ground of being, love is woven through all life, and amorous love is but the tip of a powerful emotion—at the heart’s core, remains the mysteries of erotic love to which we all owe our existence. Vernal Equinox is an honest and expansive expression, linked by passages from Lorca, but imbued by a singular voice that is both candid and instinctive.
Book of tenderness, Vernal Equinox is also the Adam’s apple mythology whirling in the eyes of the far away lover, the body’s appeal, desire and ardency, which are the unavoidable delight of carnal fire. Eloquent and sensitive, the poetry subjects crossing the pages of this book are vivid metaphors of beauty, poems of a lifetime. I mean: of a mature poet giving to the world a transcendent memory of the senses on its purest form.
- Eduardo Bettencourt Pinto
