The poet Constantin Cavafy, who though he lived in Alexandria, Egypt was of Greek background and wrote in modern Greek, is one of the centrally important poets of the first years of the twentieth century. He is especially important for his extensive use demotic Greek — the language of not only the current day, but of the everyday world — and his explorations of erotic passions in the most direct forms, eschewing the conventional circumlocutions which too often accompany any description of sexual relations, and especially the homosexual relations which are the subject of many of his poems.
In the Audio presentation which follows, you will encounter ten of Cavafy’s finest poems:
- To Remain
- The Tobacco-Shop Window
- He Asked About the Quality
- On the Stairs
- The 25th Year of his Life
- Days of 1909, 1910, 1911
- Since Nine O’Clock
- Days of 1908
- Understanding
- Their Beginning
- Passage
Click on the photo of Cavafy to hear the presentation: 
To read translations of Cavafy on-line, in Greek originals and also translated into English, go to: Cavafy’s poems and translations