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Perishable
71 pages, Paperback
Published March 24, 2025
2 people want to read
About the author
Stelios Mormoris
2 books7 followers"The Oculus" is Stelios Mormoris' debut book of poetry, which is a meditation on the nature of memory, and, in the process, touches on themes of reconciling loss, finding belonging in the world, as well as complexities of family, sex and love.
"Perishable" is Stelios Mormoris' second collection, embraces the world in constant decay and self-renewal, and celebrates this as a form of beauty and truth.
Native of Boston and Martha's Vineyard, MA., Stelios Mormoris is the CEO of SCENT BEAUTY, Inc. Citizen of Greece and the U.S., Stelios was raised in New York and spent most of his adult life living in Paris. He received his undergraduate degree in architecture from Princeton, and M.B.A. from INSEAD [Institut d'Européen d'Administration et des Affaires] in Fontainebleau, France.
His work has been published in BOOK OF MATCHES LIT MAGAZINE, CROSSWINDS POETRY JOURNAL, FOURTH RIVER, GARGOYLE, GOOD LIFE REVIEW, GREEN LANTERN REVIEW, HIGH SHELF PRESS, HUMANA OBSCURA, MIDWEST POETRY REVIEW, NASSAU LITERARY REVIEW, PLAINSONGS, POET's CHOICE, PRESS, SOUTH ROAD, SPILLWAY, SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW, TUPELO QUARTERLY, VERSE, the WHELK WALK REVIEW and other literary journals.
Stelios is an avid gardener and sailor, and a fan of rugby, American poetry, biographies, and husband of Robert Cornell, and father of a beautiful, black Shiba-Inu, Apollo. xx
"Perishable" is Stelios Mormoris' second collection, embraces the world in constant decay and self-renewal, and celebrates this as a form of beauty and truth.
Native of Boston and Martha's Vineyard, MA., Stelios Mormoris is the CEO of SCENT BEAUTY, Inc. Citizen of Greece and the U.S., Stelios was raised in New York and spent most of his adult life living in Paris. He received his undergraduate degree in architecture from Princeton, and M.B.A. from INSEAD [Institut d'Européen d'Administration et des Affaires] in Fontainebleau, France.
His work has been published in BOOK OF MATCHES LIT MAGAZINE, CROSSWINDS POETRY JOURNAL, FOURTH RIVER, GARGOYLE, GOOD LIFE REVIEW, GREEN LANTERN REVIEW, HIGH SHELF PRESS, HUMANA OBSCURA, MIDWEST POETRY REVIEW, NASSAU LITERARY REVIEW, PLAINSONGS, POET's CHOICE, PRESS, SOUTH ROAD, SPILLWAY, SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW, TUPELO QUARTERLY, VERSE, the WHELK WALK REVIEW and other literary journals.
Stelios is an avid gardener and sailor, and a fan of rugby, American poetry, biographies, and husband of Robert Cornell, and father of a beautiful, black Shiba-Inu, Apollo. xx
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December 21, 2025
"PERISHABLE is my second book of poetry, which is a mediation on the world in constant decay and self-renewal, which in itself is a form of beauty, impossible to capture, and lovely to embrace."
- Stelios Mormoris
"Stelios Mormoris's elegant and tender poems are laced with grief and subtle notes of defiance. An inheritor of the aesthetics of Amy Clampitt and Howard Moss, Mormoris creates a many-faceted sensorium in poems that convey an aching sense of the world's intricate beautyy. This superb collection, sophisticated, nimble and immersive, will more than amply reward readers." - Lee Upton
"The poems in PERISHABLE begin in mists and mediation, as the poet encounters the stuff of the natural world almost phantasmagorically, with humans ghosting through landscapes and skyscapes where even the 'tendrils of constellations' seem to rearrange themselves. Then the poems move into the urban and urbane landscapes of New York, San Francisco, Paris, to Baltimore and beyond, where human contention, the immediacy of beauty, and desire all converge. The collection climaxes with the tour de force of the title poem, as family legacy and the heritage of nature come together in the bond between florist grandfather and child grandson, where all that lives can be behdl if we 'look deep / inside the cavern of an iris.' Stelios Mormoris's second book pays deep and sensory attention to the world in all it passing and precious bloominmg." - David Groff
"The poems in PERISHABLE by Stelios Mormoris pulsate with musical intensity, as they alternated between ode and lament, sensual pleasure and the ever-presence of death. Whether paying homage to weeds, celebrating watermelon or ballerinas, Mormoris paints a world in which 'traffic sizzles', loneliness 'burns', where mortal folly and resilience reveal the 'cold lesson of distance' and 'terrible birds of our derision.' Searing and poignan t, PERISHABLE moves us through 'thickets of diary', past 'activists spitting throns' and 'sweet alarm of children playing', toward a more pressing question: 'Is it possible to be / reborn with grace?" With this collection, Stelios Mormoris makes space for us to contemplate such yearning and evanescence." - Tina Cane
"Over time, memory acquires a kind of planetary substance, with a morphology and ecology all its own. In PERISHABLE, we are able literally to see and to know the processes--some simple beautiful and tender, some complexly violent and fraught--by which such a planet comes to life. It is a thrilling privilege." - Donald Revell
- Stelios Mormoris
"Stelios Mormoris's elegant and tender poems are laced with grief and subtle notes of defiance. An inheritor of the aesthetics of Amy Clampitt and Howard Moss, Mormoris creates a many-faceted sensorium in poems that convey an aching sense of the world's intricate beautyy. This superb collection, sophisticated, nimble and immersive, will more than amply reward readers." - Lee Upton
"The poems in PERISHABLE begin in mists and mediation, as the poet encounters the stuff of the natural world almost phantasmagorically, with humans ghosting through landscapes and skyscapes where even the 'tendrils of constellations' seem to rearrange themselves. Then the poems move into the urban and urbane landscapes of New York, San Francisco, Paris, to Baltimore and beyond, where human contention, the immediacy of beauty, and desire all converge. The collection climaxes with the tour de force of the title poem, as family legacy and the heritage of nature come together in the bond between florist grandfather and child grandson, where all that lives can be behdl if we 'look deep / inside the cavern of an iris.' Stelios Mormoris's second book pays deep and sensory attention to the world in all it passing and precious bloominmg." - David Groff
"The poems in PERISHABLE by Stelios Mormoris pulsate with musical intensity, as they alternated between ode and lament, sensual pleasure and the ever-presence of death. Whether paying homage to weeds, celebrating watermelon or ballerinas, Mormoris paints a world in which 'traffic sizzles', loneliness 'burns', where mortal folly and resilience reveal the 'cold lesson of distance' and 'terrible birds of our derision.' Searing and poignan t, PERISHABLE moves us through 'thickets of diary', past 'activists spitting throns' and 'sweet alarm of children playing', toward a more pressing question: 'Is it possible to be / reborn with grace?" With this collection, Stelios Mormoris makes space for us to contemplate such yearning and evanescence." - Tina Cane
"Over time, memory acquires a kind of planetary substance, with a morphology and ecology all its own. In PERISHABLE, we are able literally to see and to know the processes--some simple beautiful and tender, some complexly violent and fraught--by which such a planet comes to life. It is a thrilling privilege." - Donald Revell
Displaying 1 of 1 review