Black Birds

Black Birds is a collection of poems written by Katerina Gogou. Katerina was a central figure of the Athens underground scene and her poems are widely known in Greece.

At the end of the 1970s, Greek society experienced substantial changes and radicalization. It was in this period that Gogou was writing her early poems. Her writings are a mirror of the marginalized parts of the society of the time, taking the side of drug addicts, prostitutes, criminals, homosexuals, the homeless and immigrants.

Katerina’s poems are often personal narratives but at the same time vivid pictures of the margins of urban society. In her writings, she gives a space to all the people that cannot find their own space in it. The protagonists of her dark stories are antiheroes who experience the violence and the anguish of urban life, the deadlocks one faces while trying to change things around themselves.

Black Birds is just a way to make people curious about Katerina.

Katerina Gogou (1940-1993) was a Greek anarchist poetess who was a representative figure of the 1980s radical political and cultural scene of Exarcheia in Athens. Katerina Gogou committed suicide in 1993 by taking an overdose of pills and alcohol. The impact of her poems, lately rediscovered and taken into consideration by the mainstream media, has always been influential in the radical movement.