This new comprehensive edition of the poems by Argyris Chionis from Kichli includes the edition titled The Voice of Silence. Poems 1966-2000 (Athens 2006), which was curated by the poet himself, along with the collections, In the Basement (Athens 2004) and Whatever I Describe Describes Me. Room Poetry (Athens 2010), as well as a publishing note.

"If I have to express in two words what novel or unusual aspect Chionis has brought to the contemporary poetic landscape, I would say: variations on the same thought. He likes to catch a theme, to turn it over this way and that, to play with it – yes, to play; who said that poetry must necessarily be serious and unsmiling? – to set it upright, sideways, upside down, until he sees how many facets it can take. There, the reader enjoys the breadth of this imagination."

Alexis Politis, Reading Poetry

WHEN PEOPLE BECOME RATS
A day will come when people will have breathed all the oxygen, they will have eaten all the fruits of the earth, they will have seen all the light. Then they will dig great pits in the ground and build underground cities. There, crawling and blind, they will be born and die in their own grave. This era will be called the Era of the Rat-like Man or the Unfathomable Rat.

Lexical Landscapes, 1983

I MEMORIZE FORESTS, natural phenomena, seasons; I memorize animals: birds and fish and reptiles, beasts and sea monsters... Here where I lie, in this bed, as an encyclopedia I treasure within me the entire world that is disappearing. A futile effort, since, being part of this world, I too am disappearing with it.

Oh, how much effort, wasted effort! How many entries, dead messages!

In the Basement, 2004

XI
The non-existence frightens me, my mother,
and I don't know why,
since my beloved, existence,
is the one
that has always reserved for me
and surely still reserves for me
the most painful surprises.

Whatever I Describe Describes Me, Room Poetry, 2010