--From the opening address to the group gathered to begin the Paros Poetry in Conversation and Translation Symposium, June 2006* Welcome and Thank you to all for coming from near and far --and especially thanks to EKEMEL. Siarita and I are surprised and very pleased that what began as a hope, spoken on a balcony in Paroika 4 years ago, is now realized in this room. Before two poetry readings, a few brief comments about our time together here at the EKEMEL supported “House of Literature”: We begin, as we did last year, at the fortuitous time of the summer solstice and the feast of St John the diviner. Many divinatory customs are practiced in Greece on this occasion. One example the Greek poet Seferis reminds us of is the dropping of molten lead into “speechless water.” This is water that a child has carried secretly from a well, without speaking to or answering anyone met along the way. The future is foretold from the shape the lead assumes when it hardens in the water. This story of translation from fluid metal into the silence of water, into the fluidity of words about the future, or into some as yet unspoken futures of words, accompanies us in our seven days together. It is also emblematic of the purpose of our meeting. We approach the idea of translation as a multitude of possible alchemies: the literal word-for-word work of moving between languages; the conversations that are generated in talking about and thinking of approaches to the work; methodic or other inventions that become necessary in response to the difficulties and impossibilities built into our tasks --to mention only a few. ……….. There are many different relations to Greek and English present in this room, from native speakers, to Greek American, to Greeks fluent in English to varying degrees, to Americans knowing little or no Greek but steeped in poetry therefore acute listeners and dedicated to curiosity, etc etc…. The asymmetries present are also impossible to ignore: all of the Greeks in the room know english and few of the Americans know much greek. Needless to say this is symptomatic of a larger global situation. So as Americans we have gratitude to the Greeks not only for hosting us in a literal but also in a figurative house of language. We begin here, as everywhere, with the fact that we often cannot understand one another -and of course I don’t speak here only of Greeks and Americans. This makes listening to that which we don’t understand, whether it be in our “own” language, or in a 2nd, or an unknown language, perhaps the first essential and enduring act of writing and translation. Thus, while production is important it is not our main concern -- we are more interested in the unexpected conversations on and off paper that result from our time together and continue beyond this time in surprising ways. So when we convene tomorrow morning we will divide into groups of two or three or more and choose a poem or page from a poem to dwell on for some hours or days --unsure of the outcome. If all that occurs in our time here is a more acute listening, an exposure to that which otherwise would not have been heard, even a dim recognition of the impossible to hear -- it will have been a very generative stay. -- Susan Gevirtz *Forthcoming in an online issue of Five Fingers Review, in a section guest edited by Tiff Dressen of poetry translated at The Symposium