Giacomo Ponti By: Dato Magradze

I am pleased and honored this evening to have the opportunity to shed some light on poetry of one of the famous Georgian poets, Dato Magradze, who is best known for his poetry books published in multiple languages, in addition to his native Georgian language.

He is a famous Georgian poet and writer of the present era, who has written the Georgian national anthem. He advocated and encouraged freedom of expression. Among the other topics he dealt with in his works are love, religion and bewilderment in the wake of a transition status of governance and social systems, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which led to the declaration of George’s contemporary independence.

This affirms that Mr. Dato Magradze is a poet who consecrates the depth of human and national feelings and erudition. He links with others, to add extra enrichment and harmony to connect with multiple peoples and cultures.

Indeed, this unprecedented encounter is in itself a bridge between civilizations. Here we have now a living example of cultural diversity and convergency through this poetry book in question, which has gotten under the same roof an interpretation of this book in Circassian, Abkhazian and English languages ​​in addition to the original Georgian language. I should mention in this place, the Circassian house, that these languages of the Caucasus are emanated from the ancient cultures of the world in the Caucasus region.

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The title Giacomo Ponti, alludes to ‘Giacomo Joyce’, a posthumously-published work by Irish writer James Joyce, written in 1914, Giacomo being the Italian form of James. Conti in Georgian means ‘nonsense’.