Anu Recommends #26
A dark cottagecore poetry chapbook by a Greek writer, and a currently reading update
Hi and welcome to the Storyteller!
(A quick note before we begin today’s issue: due to a technical error between the phone version of Substack and the desktop version, my caption for the Summer Solstice artwork wasn’t saved when last week's issue went out to subscribers. I’ve since added it again via my desktop for those who will find this through the website, but wanted to let all of you know that it was, who else, Shivani Khot 😊)
Have you ever thought of cracking the door open and whispering your story to the wind? asks Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulous in the introduction to How Long Your Roots Have Grown. When this Greek poet, writer, and editor contacted me on instagram to ask if I was interested in reviewing the chapbook, I was intrigued. Her bio states that she “chooses to see her work as the kind a Greek Ophelia would write had she navigated a world of boundless horror” and that she “writes to make sense of the obscure places where reality meets the surreal”.
I’m glad I said yes. Read on to find out why.
Review: How Long Your Roots Have Grown by Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos
Publisher’s Blurb:
How Long Your Roots Have Grown is a mental health journey across childhood trauma, deep-seated anxiety, and long-lived fears. Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos reappropriates the structure of the Ancient Greek tragedy to lure the reader into a dark fairy tale of memories that come back to haunt you and tie you with their tentacles. Greek identity, intergenerational trauma, and unholy powers merge in a chapbook that listens to your struggles and guides you, across time and space, into redemption.
Sophia-Maria divides the chapbook into Midnight, Mid-day, and Dusk, with each section further divided into four parts according to the structure of the Ancient Greek plays.
The very first section introduces the Vrykólakas (Greek for vampire), the Hooded Man that the protagonist can never truly shake, never fully separate from—“I’ll always fear that tiny moment before i sleep”—and yet, this figure is far from invulnerable—“we grew up together, after all, and he borrowed my flesh to survive.”
Even as she lets the water drag her down “all the way to where the beast sleeps”, even through the dark and the hopeless and the fear of all the shadow-work we must all undertake, we sense the faint strumming strings of courage as well as hope and grace that will strengthen by the end.
This is a collection strongly rooted in the poet’s Greek heritage, with lots of metaphor, vivid visuals, deliberate as well as hidden symbolism and personification—“i’ll carry them (scars, imprints) forever/next to the fresh sunflowers/i’ve gathered for you.”
In 50 odd pages, Sophia-Maria writes thoughtfully and passionately about journeys and endings, rebirths and transformations, grief, self-love, belief, and joy. I wish this had been an expanded poetry collection than a chapbook since there was so much depth to explore; and I’ll be definitely checking out the companion chapbook to this, her self-published debut, Dried Daisies Sprouting From My Desk.
For transformation is neither shedding weight,
nor turning back from the place you started,
but learning how to fly with both feet on the ground.
Where you can buy the chapbook:
Where to find her:
Poorly Drawn Arsenal
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Currently reading:
(though not at the locations pictured, alas)
Have you read either of these/their authors?
As always, please feel free send in recommendations—books, movie, TV shows, authors to interview, ideas of what you’d like me to write on, rants/ramblings/excited monologues, GIFs and memes (especially them) and more. Just drop me a line and turn this into a conversation, even if just to say hi and let me know what you thought of the latest issue 😊 Or share this with someone you think might enjoy it.
Take care and see you next week!
Anu
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