In the beginning there was Pain
I am often asked: How was Katerina?
Katerina was like all people: she suffered, she feared, she loved, she got angry, she gave and she hurt and was hurt. But everything to an extreme degree. Sensitivity and harshness, anger and mercy, selfishness and selflessness were the unpredictable alternating faces of Katerina. Unpredictable; that is what I think is the most characteristic thing one can say about her.

I met Katerina in the early '81. We lived together in Troias and in G' Septemvriou and I continued to see her almost until the end, although in recent years our meetings had become less frequent. I lived with her during the "good" times, when the world recognized her, loved her, read her books. Mostly, the young people and the leftists. It was the time when, for the first time after her 40s, she began to receive admiration and acceptance. It was after "Parangelia", when her first books -"Tria klik aristera" and "Idionymo"- were reissued at an unprecedented rate for Greek chronicles.

But the wounds of a sensitive soul, a wounded soul that did not become numb, were accumulated. And bitterness and damnation found an outlet in her poems. Dreams of another, different world turned into anger, words were razors, memories, screams, insults, tears.

I remember her writing obsessively on her typewriter with the cigarette burning in the ashtray. Or with the expensive pen that a friend -a fan of hers- had given her. Katerina's writing was automatic, she rarely made corrections, mostly when she read the written text and it didn't "sound good" in her mouth. "It doesn't work," she said, "it's not good here." And she rewrote it, trying to find the rhythm. She made me read them to her, to hear them, and she would get angry when I pointed out the many spelling mistakes she made.

I was the first reader of many of her poems. Those of "Xylinou Paltou", "Afonton", "Minas ton Pagomenon Stafylion". She wrote late into the night, disconnected from the world around her. And when she put the final period, we spread the typed A4 papers on the floor, trying to decide the order the poems would have in the book.
And when she received the first printed copies, one was for Myrto and the other was for me.

(George Kordellas, from the edition)

The excerpts from the poems are from Katerina Gogou's poetry collections:
"three clicks to the left", "Pseudonym", "The wooden coat", "Absentees", "My name is Odyssey", "Nostos".

Contents:
- George Kordellas, "In the beginning was Pain"
- Olia Lazaridou, "Sleepwalking among us"
- George Daglas, "The pain of nostos"
- Thomae Ouzouni, "The aspects of loneliness in Katerina Gogou"
Movies, Theatrical performances, Bibliography
- George Balourdos, "A heretical female poetic voice of the 1970s generation"
- Antonis Kafetzopoulos, "Katerina, Katerinaki (the Jeanne d'Arc of Patission Avenue)"
- Lina Karanasopoulou, "Why did she write..."
- Panagiotis (Cain) Papadopoulos, "Three clicks to the left, many years later..."
- Angelos Sfakianakis, "A song for Katerina"

Around Patission Avenue:
Musical compositions of Katerina Gogou's poems on CD

The compositions were made by:
Panos Katsimichas, Nikos Kallitsis, Makis Seviloglou, Aris Zarakas, Nikos Maidas, Vaso Allagianni, Tasos Rosopoulos, Kostas Charitatos, Vangelis Markantonis, Lolek, Konstantinos Vita, Pantelis Theoharidis, Elias Liougos, Eva Loukatou, Marios Strofalis, Dimitris Varelopoulos, Kostas Athiridis, Takis Grammenos, George Martos, Vangelis Kontopoulos

Performed by:
Panos Katsimichas, Sokratis Malamas, Martha Frintzila, Olia Lazaridou, Makis Seviloglou, Aris Zarakas, Magic de spell, Savina Giannatou, Kostas Charitatos, Vasiliki Karakosta, Vangelis Markantonis, Lolek, Konstantinos Vita, Pantelis Theoharidis, Elias Liougos, Eva Loukatou, Rita Antonopoulou, Mat in two sharps, Spyridoula Baka, Georgia Velivasaki, Gaia, Takis Grammenos, George Martos, Vangelis Kontopoulos.