Liturgy of Light

Donalee Moulton-Barrett was a writer and editor in Halifax.

Stavros Tsimicalis sees himself as “a Hellene who speaks Canadian with a Greek tongue.” That blend of ancient culture and pioneer spirit infuses this collection of poems in Greek and English; it gives the poetry strength, just as in many ways the web of being caught between two worlds, yet being of neither, gives it a painful reality.

There is a gentleness about Stavros Tsimicalis’s work, a persistent yet hushed search for identity, for answers. The answers, Tsimicalis hopes, will be found where there is light, and he focuses his search there. But light can be deceiving. “You told me once/in the warm sheets of love/‘light sustains itself/in the dark’/Groping,/I read the first signs/when love lances/your heart and the light/exits.”

This is the poet at his best. He knows what he wants to say. The message is clear and crisp. Not all Tsimicalis’s poetry has this power. At times he seems to become uncertain, the language grows stiff, and becomes awkward to read. We are aware of the poet’s struggle to create.

At its heart, though, Liturgy of Light isa lyrical, tranquil journey through time, through heritage and ultimately through poetry. Tsimicalis himself says it best: “And the poet/having roots/in other places, promenades/by a small solitary hut/in the centre of absence.”