THE OCULUS
By Stelios Mormoris
These artfully crafted poems capture the thrill of sex and love, sorrow and joy, and all the nuances in between. Written by a Greek-American gay poet, who is at once businessman, athlete and avid reader and writer, THE OCULUS is a journey of the eye. It captures the contradictions of memory, constantly evolving and unresolved, seen through the wisdom of the present.
“How necessary it is/ to lose yourself in tangles….”. This is an allusion to exploring the past in all its contradictions, and embracing confusion, almost as an art and a perpetual state of self-discovery. The vistas in THE OCULUS are lush, and transport the reader from the sensual Aegean Sea, to the calm harbors of New England, to the childhood home of a fatherless child, to the sexual landscape of Provincetown, MA.
The language in THE OCULUS is structured, and uses rhyme, half-rhyme, and versions of traditional poetic forms such as sonnets and couplets to capture experience that is verbally sonic. Stelios Mormoris’ poems resound with emotion anchored in very imagistic landscapes, and graze sentimentality with a cold, perceptive eye.
This is Stelios Mormoris’ debut collection, after a lifetime of writing poetry in isolation–in Paris, where the author lived most of his life, in Greece, where he spent his childhood, and in New England, where he currently lives.
The story of
Stelios Mormoris
I'm a ravenous romantic, into business, beauty and fragrance... but mostly I am a writer.
Stelios Mormoris is a resident of Boston and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and formerly lived in Paris most of his life, working as an executive in the beauty industry. Stelios is currently Chief Executive Officer of Scent Beauty, Inc. He studied architecture at Princeton University, where he received his BA, and he received his MBA from INSEAD (Institut d’Européen d’Administration des Affaires) in Fontainebleau, France. He has held positions on the boards of the French Cultural Center of Boston, ACT-UP, Historic New England, and The Fragrance Foundation.
Dan Beachy-Quick
“Sun-dappled yet clear-eyed, foliate yet spare, pensive yet erotic, Stelios Mormoris’s The Oculus binds together tense oppositions to create poems of nearly muscular power. They fill themselves with the vitality of a life lived fully, brimming with experience and rife with memory.”
Courtney Love Cobain
“The poems in Mormoris’ The Oculus brim with evocative, wonderfully euphonious depth, that resonates long after their reading.”
Reviews
Renée Fleming
“Fragrance guru and consummate executive Stelios Mormoris applies his powerful sensory gifts to his evocative, candid, and intimate poetry. He epitomizes the creative imagination at work.”
Christine Kondoleon
“Like the Greek Archaic poets who surely are his forebears, Mormoris draws on the Olympians to weave memories with the everyday—Icarus and the purring cat. The alchemy of verse makes his longing and desire into ours. We travel through myth and the blurred edges of past present and past perfect to arrive in a moment perfectly painted in words.”
Kylie Minogue
“Ever a colorful and compelling storyteller, Stelios Mormoris now reveals his world and beyond through poetry. The Oculus is a beautiful collection, and how lovely it is to discover more layers of Stelios.”
Debut Collection
“The poems in Mormoris’ The Oculus brim with evocative, wonderfully euphonious depth, that resonates long after their reading.”
Courtney Love Cobain
Don't miss it!
Get a special copy signed by me
I have a few copies here in Martha’s Vineyard and would be happy to send over a signed copy. Click below to request one.
