ASTORIA – The Hellenic Book Club of New York held its annual National Poetry Month Celebration at the Hellenic Cultural Center’s Thespis Theater in Astoria on April 26.

Book Club President Jeannie Kouros introduced poet and artist Eleni Traganas who read her favorite poems and selected pieces from her new book Shaded Pergola. The book centers around short but intense haiku-style poems enhanced by Traganas’ own original pen and ink illustrations. Traganas was “inspired by the Chinese poets of the Tang Dynasty and conceived during the isolating days of the recent COVID lockdown, the poems reflect upon the interaction of the human spirit with the world of nature in a near-mystical journey that cleanses us by immersing the reader into a state of deep meditation and allows us to view the seemingly insignificant world around us with rekindled, keenly-felt emotions.”

A Q&A session followed and Kouros invited the talented Traganas to return in the future and join the Book Club as a member. More information is available online: www.elenitraganas.com.

The Book Club then held its discussion of the book A Recipe for Daphne by Nektaria Anastasiadou with some members joining the group virtually.