Nationality American Name G.F. Zaimis | Role Prose writer | |
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Occupation Prose writer, poet, editor, photographer | ||
Fairy Tale Logic: Mythology to Philosophy through Poetry by G.F. Zaimis
Ginger F. Zaimis is an American prose writer, poet and photographer living in Athens, Greece who specializes in architectural forms. She is the architect of the new poetic form, the Portico Convention. Her poetic perspectives have been endorsed by the National Book Critics Circle.
Contents
- Fairy Tale Logic Mythology to Philosophy through Poetry by GF Zaimis
- Background
- Critical literary response
- New poetic form
- Published works
- Selected exhibitions
- References
Background
G.F. Zaimis is a polymath educated in the arts, architecture and economics. Her work explores language, letters and imagery through an architectural and philosophical matrix while integrating multi-disciplinary dialogues which connect the arts and sciences. Her work incorporates classical and formal archetypes and has been influenced by Jacques Derrida, his architectural ideology of deconstructivism and New Formalism.
During her years in New York City, she worked at Little, Brown and Company. She is the author of Excavated Athens to Alexandria (poetry 2013), the essay on the new poetic form entitled, The Portico Convention (poetry/architecture 2013) and Monumental Athens Urban (architecture 2012).
Critical literary response
A.E. Stallings, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , who edited the author's debut collection, Excavated Athens to Alexandria critically notes, "...Her poetic voice is fresh and unexpected: tough, tender, funny, fierce, risky and sometimes risqué. Her poetry expresses intersections of the ancient and modern world, mixing high-register diction with a vernacular of Southern sassiness." Ernest Hilbert critically notes her sonnets "...prove 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" while Contemporary Modernist, critic and translator of Modern Greek, Irene Loulakaki-Moore writes "Zaimis intertwines memory and emotion with an illustrious past, myth and history. Textual significance is built through unique intertext inviting the reader to discover the layers of the psyche in a process akin to the excavation of a city beneath a city". Ismail Serageldin, The Librarian of Alexandria, depicts "her vision as exploring the linkages between artistic expressions that act as a catalyst to connect humanity". Evangelos Moutsopoulos, Philosopher of Kairicity, member of the Academy of Athens, Musicologist and composer, advocates "her ability to coalesce language, architecture and philosophy" and Lee Slonimsky critically summarizes her poetry as "lofty, learned poems with beautiful individual voices and nearly perfect aura of timelessness. Her ability to synthesize architecture, language, poetry, art and philosophy embodies a deeply holistic and comprehending vision constituting a centralizing metaphor similar to a building like the Parthenon".
New poetic form
The Portico Convention is defined as a poetic form, 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 archetypes that emulate the design of a classical temple specifically, the colonnaded portico from which it has appropriates its name. Its concept is premised upon M. Vitruvius Pollio's architectural principles .