Pure Reason

Nikos Stangos was a popular and influential figure in the cultural life of London until his death in 2004. Arriving in Britain in the mid-1960s after a childhood in post-war Greece and a period of study in the United States, Stangos soon became part of London’s artistic and literary circles, establishing for himself a successful career in publishing. In his four decades as a commissioning editor, he was responsible for numerous acclaimed books on the visual arts, including several award-winning titles. Along the way he worked with some of the best-known artists, writers and historians of the day. A one-time publisher of poetry, he was also an accomplished poet in his own right, composing verse in both Greek and English. While rooted in the specifics of his own life, his writing deals with broad philosophical issues: the nature of beauty, truth, art and reason. Typically, though, he was without ambition for his poetry, publishing rarely, and then only in Greek. All the poems in this posthumous volume, selected by the writer David Plante, are published for the first time here.