Quoted as Ed's favourite poet, Here's a little information, and a few of his poems....

Born April 29 1863, Constantine Cavafy lived most of his life in Alexandria, Egypt. He was a distinguished Greek poet, and he died on the same day in 1933. The Cavafy family had a large amount of financial problems, with the father of nine, Peter, dying in 1870. The family moved to England after Peter's death, and it is said that the years that Constantine spent in England (between the ages of nine and sixteen) shaped the rest of his life. The study of English literature was something that particularly struck him, and it was rumored that he spoke Greek with a slight British accent until the day he died. His first verse was written in English, and signed Constantine Cavafy.

The only instance reported of Constantine attending any sort of formal education was after he returned to Alexandria, and enrolled in Hermis Lyceum for a brief period of time. In 1882 Constantine's mother Hariklia moved her family again for three years to Constantinople where her father offered them a room in his house at Yenikoy. Three of her sons returned to Alexandria. It was a time of great poverty, however Cavafy wrote his first poems in English, French and Greek there, and also apparently had his first homosexual affairs. Soon after his return to Alexandria in 1885, he received a press card as correspondent for the Alexandrian newspaper Telegraphos, and by 1888 he was working at the Egyptian Stock Exchange as assistant to his brother Aristidis. Much of his time was devoted to the writing of poems and a few prose essays, including one in English entitled "Give Back the Elgin Marbles".

At 29 Cavafy took a position as a special clerk in the Irrigation Service (Third Circle) of the Ministry of Public Works, which he held for thirty years. He retired in 1922 with the rank of "Assistant Director". He continued to live in Alexandria until his death, from cancer of the larynx, in 1933. It is said that he received the holy communion of the Orthodox Church shortly before dying, and that his last motion was to draw a circle on a blank sheet of paper and then place a period in the middle of the circle.

Many years after his death, the apartment he had lived in in Alexandria was turned into a cheap hostel, and then eventually it was made into a museum which opened November 6th 1992.

~ Cavafy Poems ~

Thanks go to Ithaka - a tribute to Constantine Cavafy for the picture and information